🚩He doesn't know.... (English Story)

One second with him started meaning a million forevers to me. But things were changing.. Was he going away, or was he always at a distance from me? A distance that couldn't be explained, a distance that was immeasurable.

What happened between us that night was unplanned, but was beautiful. It made my soul rest in peace for a while. Though it was just one night but was like a lifetime to me. There was nothing about being physical, but was more of a connection that was silent yet so expressive. I was myself and I just knew that and each moment was just passing with infinite little pauses that lasted within each beat that my heart took.

I couldn't sleep the whole night but looked into those deep eyes, in that dim lit room and whenever he closed his eyes, I asked him not to sleep. When I think now, I just laugh off, think a lot about what was on my mind, why wasn't I letting him sleep. Then just one thing crumbles my mind that I had just found so much peace in those tired sleepy deep eyes that it woke up all senses of mine and I was scared about the breaking of that dream, I was living in. I wanted the moment to stay but I wanted to go closer, I wanted to spend a few more lifetimes like that, I wanted to let his soul's beauty color my soul deep red and just wanted to see him for as long as I could.

I knew he didn't have anything for me, it was all just transitory, but it was just melting me inch by inch and I was getting hollow from within with every moment when he was going away. The next morning was beautiful, he went away for a while for some work, He thought I slept, but I was sleepy and active at the same time. I was excited, happy and doubtful at the same time. I had questions and answers both within me, about a new beginning or an end that would might just change my life and our relationship forever. I wrote two little notes for him and hid them inside his cupboard and book. He came back and had no idea about it. He smiled at me and kissed me good bye, but it wasn't that simple, was it?

I knew it wasn't the first time for him, he knew all the do's and dont's of this, but it was the first time someone actually left that impact on me that I couldn't stop smiling for days and started dreaming of things that I had known were impossible. It just happened unplanned. He didn't take any advantage of me, though I was all the time beside him, but just made me feel so deeply loved and respected at the same time that all my past encounters with love started seeming immaterial.

I started living life after years and could feel the breeze touching me, which made me feel alive all over again. He doesn't know what difference he brought to my life. He doesn't know how deeply I fell in love with him. The simplest part of my love for him that I felt so complete in that one night that I just stopped expecting even a bit from him. Also because somewhere I knew that if one more raindrop of his presence would touch me, I would hopelessly drown forever. Its not that I want him so bad, its just that I want to actually feel and believe that he exists. I want to just look in those eyes like I never could all these years.

I have seen him since forever now and have known him since a decade maybe, and I now feel what a worthless life I lived because I just couldn't find him when he was just beside me. Now I think about the million opportunities when I could look at him for hours, when I could just spend my time with him and write my destiny with him so that we could share a common past, present and future. I know if he would ever read this, he would get scared of me, scared of this intensity I love with. This is a secret that I'd keep to myself and would reveal someday to him when either I'd know that he too loves me, which is near to the impossibility of living on the planet Pluto which is my weird fantasy or when I'd know that knowing all this would make no difference to us anymore. 

I fell for him in a few hours and since then each hour seems so long. But I like waiting for him and looking at my phone every now and then, expecting him to miss me the way I do, or maybe just calling to meet me. Lets see.

At times he just texts me out of the blue. At times the texts are sweet, and at times they are open ended, for me to understand, for me to decode. At times he shows he's busy, at times he shows he has time, at times I feel he feels the same but at times I feel he sympathises. I really don't want his sympathy but just want him to know that I haven't seen a guy like him in my life. He is flawlessly so amazing. I live with fears that these things may just get revealed through me, I also fear that he may just go away or start ignoring me. But then I just think the positive way, the way I have learnt from him. That we have met after so many years for some reason. Some reason yet to be explored. Some reason yet to unfold. He doesn't feel even a bit for me and my life has taken such an unpredictably crazy turn after that night. I don't think it made any difference to him but my life has changed so much.

I was supposed to go out of town a few days later, and wanted to meet him once. But he couldn't get any time. I know, it must've been tough but he said he was trying his best. Though inside I knew somewhere deep that I was not his priority that he'd cancel or change his plans for me, but here I was all prepared to change everything with just one sign that showed that he too cared. I know I was going insane and didn't even care about the stage of abandonment. I showed him every time that I had all the time and he could meet me any day any time before I leave. But he couldn't get time.

He had become my routine by then. Not a regular one with respect to time.. but thinking about him all day long was some kind of routine for me. N when during that thought process, his messages pinged at my phone, they made me smile. After that night, when I watched romantic films, I could again smile, the way I could years before. I again wanted to believe that it exists and in 'forevers', just because of the way he made me feel. It was just a night for him, but for me every second is replayed in my mind a million times, every single day. Since I started feeling for him, these weird dreams started coming every other night in which I just saw tigers. I couldn't understand it for months and then read it online that its due to either suppressed fears or feelings. These dreams continued even after that night until I shared these weird dreams with him, but all what he could understand and judge was fear, which could be of anything. I thought over it n just realized, there was no such fear, but just the one crazy one, that was to be rejected by him after that night and him changing and just calling it 'one casual night'. It wasn't a casual night but maybe a causal night that changed all the directions of my life. I wish he could know that I have just gone too deep into those eyes and that too to the extent that now I can't sleep. I'm just so caught up in him, so stuck up to him that till now I close my eyes and touch my hands the way he did, embrace myself, the way he did and like an idiot, just look in the mirror and smile.

I can clearly recall that one text that he sent that made me smile for a hundred Sundays to come, when I texted him at the same weekend of that night's week, 'Have an awesome Sunday' and he texted back 'It's all on you..'. I remember this text so clear because I read it every time when the questions arose in my mind and when I lost hopes. I don't know what he meant, he never explained what he felt. But just left me with smiles. When I was away, we talked through texts, whereabouts and how was the day going stuff, when he couldn't text, he started giving explanations and apologizing for late replies. I took it as a positive sign. Maybe I held a little significance in his life. I worked for a week in the other town and came back in such a rush because I wanted to know what was the real scenario behind those texts and gestures.

Shit I fell for him and it was something I didn't ever wanted to imagine as he always was such an impossible entity to me altogether. But he was so full of life and so positive that the energy just travelled from him to me and just turned my world upside down. Each of my cell had started dreaming of him and engaged me with a million memories associated with him and made me fall more and more for him. I recalled and replayed it all in my heart, all the times his eyes opened and closed, all the times he made sure that I wasn't cold, all the times our toes touched, all the times he embraced me more, all the times he was looking at me and talking, actually all the moments he existed ! He was just unimaginable because he was just so wonderful. I loved him by then.

Things gradually started changing. I saw him online, but the replies came late. I called him after gathering all the courage, and his phone was busy. I typed texts a lot of times.. the long ones.. explaining how at that particular moment by reliving that one night I was again going nuts, and rubbed it off and abused myself for being so.. teenage like. I waited for his replies, I saw him online..again but not responses to my texts, but still I waited, because he replied, no matter how late it is and he did, but by then, the conversation spirit was over.

He had become one of the .. actually the most beautiful thing in my life. I am saying this thing which is just too big because I re-analysed the graph of the intensity of the way I feel by reading my old diaries..old poetries and realized that I never felt this crazy.

He was like poetry because he was so much in just one word and that word was his name. He could be described in a million ways. He could be written about in a million ways. His entire being was something so supernatural because he was able to keep me awake for whole nights. And the ironical and funny part is that he too woke up in middle of the night and texted me out of the blue. No I don't take it as a sign but he was just so beautifully impossible to be mine. I didn't even think that I could even afford to dream of him. But things transformed the day we met.

The second meeting was the game changer. We were supposed to meet at the weekend and like a dreamer of my rose land, I was hoping that he'd spend sometime everyday with me and maybe an entire day. I started waiting a day before the weekend and didn't go and meet anyone.. but eventually we met the third day for a long period of 8 to 9 hours which became the most tranformatory hours of my life. I was really excited. Got ready and changed my clothes around three times, because I just didn't want to look too ready, but just usual. As I didn't know if it was a date or a casual meeting with a good friend. Finally I wore a black tee shirt and a blue jeans with a leather jacket. Started texting and calling him and got a little disappointed as the plan got delayed till late afternoon. In utter excitement I missed my breakfast and lunch as well.

After waiting for over an hour in a drizzling weather, I got to see him, he came to pick me in his long white car which I was in absolute love with. We talked all the way and I was just looking at him, his fingers moving through his hair and travelling till the steering. He just gave such positive vibes to me that I felt like looking at him like that for my entire life.

His eyes talked too much and he was a little loud, which is a distinguished kind of a thing to find in a man. Yes, now for me he wasn't the every other guy, but my Man! When he talked I felt like just listening to everything, every sentence and every word with utter attention and feeling the emotion by myself. No matter how usual the thing was about which he was talking, everything made sense. We stopped in between and bought few things to eat. It was raining and the drive was just very nice and long. We reached his place and talked for long. Our plan was to watch a film of my choice and another of his own. Unfortunately, my film, 'Queen', the Bollywood classic, didn't play. We decided to watch a random film which we both hadn't seen before and settled on an intense film 'Any Day Now'. We loved it to the core and paused at times and discussed the possibilities. Our pizza arrived along with a taco after a while and we finally had lunch around 5.00 pm.

I remember there were moments when we were talking to each other, the music was too loud and we moved out to a silent place, where we could talk but couldn't be loud. He used to come closer to me and whisper in my ears and I could feel his warm breaths and couldn't concentrate on a single word that he spoke, but got my senses back and focused over the content of his thoughts and not the feel. I was whispering too but was away from him and faced him, but he whispered every time from the back, in my ears and his breaths drove me nuts. We then went back and I helped him with his packing his stuff as He was going out for over a month for some official work. I again left two little notes in between his clothes, in a hope that they might make him smile like the last time.

There were times, when we were a few inches apart and every time I felt a little awkward, but saw him looking deep in my eyes. I didn't know what it meant. This time, I made sure that I was in my senses as I wanted to remember everything unlike the last time. I could feel every second of the moment our eyes met or he sat close to me or those unexpected hugs that happened out of the blue, it was all getting registered in the emotions section of my heart.

But these few hours were the game changers, in our usual conversations, I started collecting things he thought about me, which were just different from what I thought they were. I was stupid and moronic as well as he judged me from my previous relationship, but after a little discussion, he felt I was just selfless and apologized for being judgemental. The conversations went on and he started getting more translucent, but I waited for the stage when I could see through him. We talked about life and how travelling could change it, how important family is and how often we take them for granted. We talked about childhood mischief and crazy encounters with exceptional experiences and it went on and on until just a few sentences changed the entire scenario.

He finally asked until when was I staying and what was the plan when I playfully said, "let me take some advantage of you", he smiled and then his words shattered me, "I met someone around 2.5 months back. She's a north eastern. Met her just once and at a party and nowadays, we're talking and hopefully its going at the right track." I was numb for a few microseconds but collected myself and showed the highest level of excitement I could. "Oh ! Thats awesome" and started teasing him.

But in my mind, I was asking myself, 2.5 months, that is one month before that very night? What did those texts mean? What about those hugs, those close moments? Were those things usual for him? Does he treat all his girl friends like that? He never had anything for me? Then what did "Its all on you" text mean? What was going on his mind ?

It created a havoc in my mind and I couldn't be silent as he would've been able to listen the cracking sound of my heart maybe. I couldn't show him anything but just smiled and talked about any random shit. His friend came just after a while. We also talked for sometime and finally left together to drop me till my hostel and for dinner.

I was sitting with him in the front and the radio was all filmy that night. My favorite of this particular period played on then, which I used to hum when I danced alone in my room with him on my mind, "Haan seekha maine jeena jeena".. All through the drive I stole a few looks at him and just had a million thoughts crossing my mind. Maybe it was the last time I was looking at him like that, does he still respect me the way he did? Oh shit, did he get to know that I have fallen for him or maybe worse, does he think I'm one of those relationship desperate losers? I was confused yet clear but couldn't understand if I had a headache or a heartache, my hopes shattered or my heart did, my smile faded or my life did, I couldn't understand.

It was a rainy weather and then there was a song at the radio "Saawan aaya hai..", I was listening, imagining and thinking just in terms of his last words and him. He never felt for me the way I did, he never loved me the way I did and he doesn't even know how crazy I am.

He was a changed person maybe, or maybe he was this way since forever. I was thinking too far maybe. He was practical and sensible. He knew what he wanted and what happened that night was just an accident and maybe worse, a mistake for him. I was a fool to think that he might have felt a little for me, maybe a percent, maybe just a gram, but no.. Maybe he had too high hopes, or maybe I was too different for him. He dropped me, hugged me and left. I was standing there, alone, confused, hurt and thinking how to interpret all what happened. What were those moments about ? When we sat so close, when he hugged me, when he texted me that his Sunday to become awesome is all dependent on me? It all was crashing with my mind and driving me crazy. I was looking in the mirror n channelizing myself. Wasn't I attractive enough, or am I not a good person, but the answer just reflected that I was not 'the one' for him.

The next day I texted him thanking him for the great day and hospitality. Like usual days he updated me his whereabouts and normal status. He was normal like before but things changed between us. I couldn't sleep the whole night again and kept crying. The last time we met, he wanted to hear me sing. I recorded a song for him and sent him, told him that it was his request that I accepted after 12 hours. He sent a smiley :-)

I also texted him the next day to let me know when he finds the two little notes I kept between his clothes this time. He didn't reply. I could understand, he was thinking maybe that I still haven't understood that he had someone in his life. But I couldn't understand that if someone was there, why did he let me enter the door of his heart and life? Why didn't he tell me that I could stand and wait outside but couldn't step in? Why didn't he let me step in with one foot and left me midway with an instability that couldn't be cured. So many questions I had and still have. Will he ever love me back ? Or will he ever answer my questions ?

....

I gradually started understanding things, getting answers through his silences. The messages and their frequency reduced, just like the rainbows fade off after a while, even before the drops leave the petals of flowers, even before the winds understand the changed weather. He had gone away for over a month to a distant place for work, where there were network issues as well. There were days of no communication, n then a message complaining the networks and an apology of late reply, that too of just a "Hi" or "Whats up"? I know he might have realized that he has to now build up few translucent temporary walls between us, so that I don't fall in love with him. But how would he ever know, that love wouldn't ever happen, stop or change as per a persons expectations or plans, love just happens. The way it did, at 5.15 a.m on the sixth day of the second month of the fifteenth year of the millenium.

He loves someone else, or maybe just likes her, but there's nothing for me, that I was sure of. But why couldn't this get registered in my heart, why could I still feel the warmth of his breaths on my forehead, the smell of his skin in my soul and the beats of his heart in every step that I made. Why did he still have the power to drive me insane! I thought for days and nights, it made me smile and haunted me at the same time. It was a mixture of so many deep thoughts which were entangled with each other in forms of complicated emotions and frustrations.  I wanted to tell him how I felt, but reminded myself, that the outcome would be nil and I knew that. So everyday I had the 'mirror session'! In this session, I confessed my everyday feelings for him to my mirror, asked questions, answered them myself, looked at his pictures and re-read his messages. It just made me feel lighter, brighter and made things more simpler for me.

....

Things completely changed after this long gap between us. He stopped responding to my Good Morning messages and even general things. I know he wasn't busy and in fact nobody could be so busy to not be able to send one reply. But eventually, with time I understood the deep meaning of the phrase, 'Not getting a message is also a message'. He wasn't messaging me or talking to me because he wanted to give me enough time to get over what happened. Because he didn't feel the way I did, not even for one moment he felt so and he was so honest about it. It made me respect him even more and to be honest, helped me to move on and accept what happened. Yes, we are still friends and he's shifted to another city because of a new posting. We meet whenever it is possible and things are the same, normal and as if that chapter just got deleted, at least from his mind and memory. He's still there for me as a friend and I respect him so much for that. But there are confessions that he is not aware of. Yes, I still have butterflies in my stomach when I meet him, I still fall in love with his loud laugh, I still love to hear him talk, his deep voice and deeper eyes, but he doesn't know, he might never know, or maybe he will, once this story reaches him and he gets to know the madness of this hurricane of my feelings. I still love him and always will and will believe somewhere deep in my heart that for once, he loved me too. No matter it was just a day or night, an hour or maybe just five minutes, he did love me, he did right ?