Alternate Universe
"I think I love him," she thought. Her hands covered her face, her chest was heaving rapidly, a tear snuck its way down her face and out of her shielding hands. As quietly as it snuck out, it faded away as well. She was taken aback by her own self. The day had been perfectly good. A mischief there, a chuckle here. It was going pretty well.
Sitting among her team, the fragrances of food gladly occupied all her thoughts. Someone cracked a joke. She couldn't laugh. It had been a good day. Yet there it was again. The lump in her throat. The foreshadowing darkness dawning upon her heart, smothering the life she was trying so hard to keep in high spirits.
Her cell phone pinged. There was just one sentence. One sentence. "I am tired of life." How many times had she said these words to herself? Wasn't she familiar with this sentence already? She had heard countless people countlessly utter this very sentence mindlessly. Yet here it was. The sentence that gouged the life out of her perfectly fine day. One of her hands instinctively clutched her stomach as if that would ameliorate the imminent pain. Why were these few words so daunting all of a sudden?
She texted back, scared to know the answer, but she still asked if everything was alright. "She is getting married.." came back the reply and her heart fell in the pit of her stomach. What was she supposed to say to this? Why did it hurt more knowing that he was hurting than because he was hurting because of another person? Why was it that in that moment she prayed for that person to not leave him just so he would never have to say that sentence? Why was it that the shaking hand holding her stomach decided it will take care of its own tremors but his needed to be addressed?
Maybe it was because he was talking. Maybe it was because she had longed to look inside him for so long. Maybe it was because the person she was searching for inside him was so unapproachable to her that one glimpse of his agony stopped her world. Maybe that's why it didn't matter what his agony was about... because it must have mattered so much that she got to know at least his agony once. Such a selfish thought, yet here she was in pain herself over her obsession with this distant person.
His was the shoulder she had cried on many times. His was the presence she had felt miles away. His was the smile traces of which she could find in other smiles. His were the eyes she couldn't meet. His was the voice she longed to hear between her sobs. His was the existence she sought. Yet his was the pleasure she never was allowed to be a part of. His were the thoughts she was never made privy to. His were the sorrows she could never share the burden of.
Perhaps that's why that one glimpse into a probable reality of him hurt her and pleased her all at once. Excusing herself from the group she took her shaking self to a corner.
"What wrong with you? Relax. Nothing's wrong. He is alright. Don't worry. Nothing's wrong. Relax…" she repeated under her breath. But the tears ran down her face, the heart beat erratically just the same.
And so she thought, "I think I love him," and how much it hurt yet how pleasurable it felt in the very same moment..
A/N: Leave a review if you've felt the same some time..