Do you love me yet?

In the beginning

29th April 2023

That day had been exhausting, not only was work extremely busy but my mother wanted a two hour phone call and to be completely honest I cannot tell you a word she said, I had shut off.
The man I had exchanged numbers with on a dating site a little over a week before however, his texts gave me butterflies and felt like the only positive part of that day. How ridiculous do I sound? I used to look down and see the name Nashira on my phone, it made me smile, you know when you catch yourself waiting for their message and you just stare at your phone like a complete psycho... yeah that was me.
I don't think it even took a whole minute for me to reply, I'm not sure how that hadn't scared him off.
And there it was again, the notifications for a message

" Do you wanna video call tonight? "

My heart was pounding, fuck, he actually wanted to call. I know I sound shocked and that's a little weird since I was spending my days talking to him but I usually got bored and never made it to actual voice calls let alone video calls. Panicking I ran to my bathroom and pulled out my makeup bag before looking into the mirror to see the mess that I was. I wasn't sure how I was covering the dark bags around my eyes and my flushed cheeks. I quickly filled in my eyebrows and put on some mascara, put a little concealer on my dark circles and rosey cheeks, licking my lips to get rid of the dryness and threw my hair into a crocodile clip.
That was the best he was getting, absolutely nothing like my profile pictures, I wasn't sure if I had slowly over time become a catfish.
I picked up my phone to see he had sent another message

" Or if tonight isn't good, maybe another time?"

I clicked on to his message, heart beating fast and hands trembling, thumbs hovering over the key pad and slowly replied with slight hesitation...

" tonight sounds good 👌🏼 "

Pressing send, knowing this was it, I had said it now and there wasn't any going back, I rushed back to the sofa where I had been lounging since finishing work and quickly tidied the cushions.
And there it was, the FaceTime video call coming through, trying to take a deep breath but my lungs felt like they couldn't fully expand, beads of sweat appearing on my forehead
Bloody hell, I had only fluffed up some cushions!
I sat down on the sofa and held the phone up to my face before pressing the green button.
" Hello." His voice a little shy but cheery and his shy smile to match and instantly I felt at ease. Looking into his brown eyes, a smiled crept across my lips, the beautiful Nepalese man who I had spent that last week talking to was finally on my phone, in flesh. With his cheeky mixed accent and slight grin, I was in awe.

We had spoken on the phone for four hours and even then I didn't want it to end.
So much in common and I genuinely laughed so hard, it had been over a year at that point that a laugh like that escaped my lips. I did however make some mistakes that night, I lied a lot, it was like a coping mechanism for me. It let me escape my trauma, my reality and although at the time it didn't seem like a problem, I regret it so much now. 

I lay there at 2:30am on a Monday night knowing I had work in 6 hours, I had no regret for how tired I would be, talking to a man I barely knew creating some delusional life I never had for myself.

May 21st 2023

Weeks had passed by and this became a daily occurrence, it wasn't something I expected, still, we hadn't met but distance was against us and his job stole all his time. He was becoming my best friend and days we didn't call I felt empty, I knew then I was already emotionally attached and I could feel he was too but this isn't something we discussed.

We would constantly flirt and talk about the moment we would first meet, we both craved each other. I truly wanted him, in every way, he made it abundantly clear that he couldn't give me a relationship and to be honest I wasn't sure of what I wanted because of my past. Maybe I should of been grateful for that but at the same time it hurt, i was always the no strings attached fun and never the soul mate. 
I remember patiently waiting for him to say he was free to call, like I needed my fix, I was like that most days. Learning things about each other, our funny conversations that lead to us giggling till early hours and being exhausted the next day, trying to open up to each other about our past life experiences but we both struggled with that. Setting boundaries when we took jokes too far, laying in bed and falling asleep on the phone because I seriously struggled with sleeping. We knew about each others day, text all day and called most nights and it become a part of our daily routine, it became my new normal, I felt less lonely and the feeling of not being enough was slowly escaping my grasp that I had held on so tightly too for so long.
And this was the beginning, the moment that bound us, that first ever video call is where it all began, I just didn't realise the heart ache that came next.