Two
Around halfway through the lifespan of our first dating stretch, he took the even deeper plunge. It started off as two typed words not-so-surreptitiously slipped in between 'good night' and 'bye' at the end of our text conversations. I tried to ignore it, hoping if I ignored it it'd go away.
I was flattered, sure, but I didn't want to say it until I meant it. I had got into this looking for a spot of fun and ended up with a crush. I didn't want to nurture that crush into love until I was sure he was the one I wanted.
Oh, but that boy sure is persistent. In a one week long relationship, I managed to hear and read them magic words over five times a day, with no encouragement or response from me. I couldn't really bring myself to say 'thanks'; I'm not that big a dickhead.
One memorable incident, around halfway through the week. A few girls and I were hanging out around one of the school's side entrances. It was cold, and we were in the school winter uniform – blazer, collared shirt, tie and pants, and I have no idea why this detail has stuck in my mind.
Then he strolled by us, heading for the entrance, but stopping when he saw us. I was the recipient of some nudging and oohing as soon as he came into view, and I ducked my flaming face and discreetly moved away from the main group. My friends gathered around and started teasing him, and then one of them said something like: "aww, c'mon, you lurv me!"
By no means was I jealous. By no means.
I was not jealous. The friend was not serious and I was not jealous.
But for some reason my head shot up at that comment, and from my vantage point two steps up the entrance, ready to bolt from a potentially embarrassing situation, I looked just in time to see his squared-by-the-blazer silhouette, hands pushed into his pockets, against the cold winter morning sky as he told the friend with a bit of a frown in his voice, "I don't love you. I love her." And he jerked his chin towards me. My eyes widened very, very much, my heart stopped, and I was suddenly shy. For that moment, I drowned out the catcalls and titters, and lost myself in the emotion. Then I turned, and I fled.
I know what all of the characters in this play are thinking right now as they read this – Anoushka, you're so whipped.
And I am. Very whipped. It has been so difficult to write a coherent story on these pages, because every time I remember you I get this uncontrollable urge to type a jumbled, emotional mess. But the writing should not resemble the writer, right? I promised you a chronicle and a chronicle you shall get, no matter how arduous my task seems right now. In fact, one of my first attempts at this chapter degenerated into this:
i love you i love you dammit this hurts i love you your eyes i love you im whipped you smell like a dream why does this hurt so much i love you so goddamn much i love you i love you i love you
And as I write this I know exactly how hard this is going to come back to bite me in the ass.
And then I broke up with him. It was the first Monday of December that I ended it. I've given up on trying to formulate good reasons as to why I break up, but back then I was still trying. My decision was made over the weekend: when it comes to him, for some reason I can't ever decide to leave him if I'm in regular contact with him. The reason for that is for me to guess at, the reader to figure out and him to know.
In my mind, I told myself I never liked him to begin with, that things were going too fast and it would be better to quit while he wasn't already too involved, that he was way too sappy for my liking et cetera et cetera. Out loud, I cited 'commitment issues', that all encompassing blanket of relationship problems that has a thousand meanings but no true meaning. The words that make it easier to say: 'I'm a coward.' I have no idea what I was thinking, but it ran somewhere along the lines of I really don't want to break his heart I need to let him down easy oh god how do I keep this sufficiently vague and kind and dear lord I'm a terrible person. In retrospect, I think it was just because the 'I love you' freaked me out, which is clichéd and cowardly and the symptom of a textbook commitment-phobe.
