Unrequited Love

There was bright sunlight outside. The birds were chirping and a teacher in the next classroom was teaching Biology. All the students in our class were busy talking and doing some work. I was just flipping through the English text book when Tshomo whispered, “Hey Yangki! Did you notice a boy sitting in the third table in our row? I mean, did you notice him always staring at us. I am not sure whether or not he is staring at us, but I noticed him, from the corner of my eyes, always looking straight to us.”  “What are you saying? Which boy?” I looked behind and there I saw you for the first time. I might have seen you before this moment, but I had never seen you in that way. You didn’t notice me looking at you. You looked lost. Your eyes staring at the wall clock hung above the green board. Your pink lips tightened. Your one hand was holding your glowing-face and the other one on the table. I felt something cold running down my body. “Yangki, what happened?” “Nothing, mmm I was just looking behind. You know mmm Let’s go out.”  Tshomo noticed my blushed face, but she didn’t say anything. For a moment she just looked into my eyes as if she has seen a diamond.  Even if she asked, I wouldn’t have had the answer. All I could have said was “I felt cold.”

No sooner you looked at him, your face became as red as a ripened apple, you ran out of words while answering me and your body temperature changed suddenly. I know you are telling a lie to me because I already saw the truth in your eyes. For more than seven years I have seen truthfulness of your words in your eyes whenever we had conversations. Your eyes have always shown as a secret password for me to know the truth. Your eyes have always showed a cleared path to the transparency of your heart, as they did today. Though you lied to me, I am not hurt as I know you need some time to figure out your feelings towards him. However, I’ll be hurt if you don’t share it with me before it’s too late. I just want to deter you from defining your feelings towards him as love because I know it’s not love. It’s just an infatuation, a temporary distraction that will bring deception and disappointment in your life and thereafter you will blame me for drawing your attention towards him. To protect you as well as our friendship, I want to talk with you about it by hook or by crook. However, I don’t want you to feel as if I am ruling your life. Thus, I waited for you to begin first but you never did.

            Most of the time, you walked alone. During break hours and free periods, you either went to hostel or sleep in the classroom. My eyes always followed you. I started to love each and every attribute of yours. Whenever I entered our classroom, I looked at you first. In my quiet complicated way, I continued to observe you. However, you never seemed to notice me. In fact you didn’t seem to have any crushes or interest in girls. You hardly talk with girls. I never knew how people fall in love, but by the time I come to know about it, I was already in love with you. I spoke to no one about my feelings not even to Tshomo instead I waited for you to sense my feeling towards you and talk to me first. I waited for Tshomo to see the changes in me and ask me the reason behind it. However, a year has come to an end and neither of you asked me about my feelings. I begin to lose faith in both of you. I stopped believing in what I used to believe about one’s closest people understanding one’s feelings. I feel like I lost both of you forever.

I felt as if I was on the top of the world when you gave a close look at me for the first time. Your look was so powerful that I couldn’t look back into your eyes at that moment. I just pretended as if I was counting down minutes for the bell to ring. I saw changes in your complexion`. I sensed you feeling cold and I heard your heart beats beating faster than usual. You finally reciprocated my love with your one loving glance. However, I am sorry that I have turned my deaf ears to your feelings. I am sorry for pretending as if I didn’t know anything. I know your eyes always long to see me as I have always seen your soul through your eyes. I have looked into many girls’ eyes but I could never see their souls as I have seen yours. This may be because you love me as much as I love you. In your absence, my heart didn’t beat as fast as it used to beat in your presence. I wanted to share my feelings towards you and hold your hands from the day that I met you. However, sometimes things don’t go the way we want. I can’t even tell you the reason for being such a cold hearted boy. All I could do is wait for you to approach first so that I could at least say sorry and clear your path forever.