Lost Love

Omar

Dear Omar,

The day I sat down next to you in the cafeteria and you snatched your things and walked away I hated you. I thought maybe it was because you were shy but you weren't that cliche, were you? People started bullying me because of you! They called me a stink bomb because I had to be the way you left like that. I just thought I couldn't let you eat lunch alone another day. 

Why couldn't you leave it at that? Why did you have to give me those chocolates and stupid drawing of that stupidly adorable cat apologizing? You ruined me and our perfectly nonexistent relationship, Omar!

I found myself searching for your curly ponytail and your head hung in a book you were always reading, drifting at your own pace in your own bubble apart from the world around you. You never did bother with anyone around you. You never looked up. But God did you shine when you did. No one hated you. Those privileged enough got to glimpse a smile so wide the gums of your white teeth shined from how happy you were to see them. What I wouldn't give to be one of those privileged few.

Half the student body didn't want to be at school. You looked like you fit into that description the way you ran off school grounds sometimes. But when I saw you on campus so early after I flunked my geometry midterm in tenth grade and had to take extra classes, I knew I was wrong. You liked school. You loved it. You helped the janitors and cafeteria chefs prepare. I thought it was for extra credit or something but that was wrong, too.

You LIKED to help people. Anyone. Everyone. EveryTHING. You're alone all the time but never lonely. You're never openly social but definitely not unsocial. You were the perfect middle of everything.  

So what was your flaw, Omar Ali? 

I wish I never found out. I should've seen it in the way you kept getting smaller.

I freaked out when I saw you in the snow. You woke up when I got down to check and that was when I knew: you weren't okay at all. Your eyes were bloodshot and the tip of your pointy nose was red from the cold. You were tired as hell. You just stared at me, your dark brown eyes warm and kind yet fatigued, your curly brown hair splayed out in the snow melted under you. 

You smiled and I knew then you didn't see me. I could feel it in your eyes. You saw something through me. Was it an angel? I wish I knew.

You closed your eyes and you never opened them again. 

That smile haunted me. That smile killed me. I hated you for smiling. If I could go back, I would have pried my way into your life like you shined into mine. 

I loved you, Omar Ali. I wish I had realized it sooner. I'm so sorry.