B.O.A.T - Brownest of All Time

Chapter 50

Dear Perfect Jawline,

Since you are an old-fashioned man, I thought I'd do this the old-fashioned way. Also, because I won't be able to say any of this to you in person. Your jawline might distract me and make me stutter and say the wrong thing haha ;)

So, where do I start? About how kind you have been to me since day one? About how special you've made me feel every time you complimented me genuinely for the work I do?About how patient you've been every time I overreacted for the smallest of things? About how you've made me realize that even a girl like me could get a fairytale love story and be loved without being a rebound?

The truth is, sweet sweet Zayan, I developed a crush on you the moment I met you at Amer's event. I don't know whether you noticed but I couldn't even respond to you normally the first time you spoke to me. I struggled so hard to say a simple 'thank you' because I was strongly infatuated by that sharp jawline of yours ;)

Honestly, your jawline is nothing but perfection and your smile is the most infectious thing in this world :) I adore your infinite positivity and your laugh-worthy humor. You are certainly the best man I've seen in my life and I admire everything about you.

You are the kind of guy that I come across only in romance books and movies. You are the type of guy that all women dream of. You are unbelievably charming. You are genuine. You are candid. You are decent. You are too good to be true. And though you don't admit, you are truly perfection itself.

Though I liked you right from the beginning, I never even imagined that you'd like me back too. But then 10 days ago, it happened and it felt like a miracle. When you confessed your love to me, I couldn't believe my ears and I kept telling myself it was just a dream. And though I was supposed to feel happy, I rather started feeling insecure.

I started feeling insecure because we are way different. To start with, it's our skin tones. I know I speak a lot about colorism and this shouldn't matter to me at all. But maybe it does. I mean, I don't dislike myself. As it is now, I absolutely love my skin color and I don't want to change a damn thing about it. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid whether living with you would make me go back to my self-loathing once again.

You see Zayan, this thing called self-love is a new practice for me. For twenty-five years of my life, I've hated everything about me. And it is only recently that I learnt to accept myself the way I am. So, I'm afraid whether I will lose it in the process of loving you. Just to impress you, I might try to pretend to be a certain kind of person so hard, that sooner or later I might forget to love myself.

Now, you might not even understand what I'm trying to say because wherever you go, I'm sure that you are celebrated for your good looks. But it's not the same case for me. You would've never been through the kind of problems that I've faced simply because I was born brown-skinned.

For so long, the society has been telling me that I'm not good enough, that today when you are standing in front of me saying that you love me, sadly my heart is not able to accept it. My mind is constantly thinking 'what could be the catch?' because deep down I somehow have come to believe that I don't deserve the love of a man like you.

When I mentioned to my sister and friend about you, they told me that you are one golden opportunity that I should not miss. Now, I know both of them love me a lot and that is why they said that. But it bothered me for some reason. Because I know that any point in life, that's how people around us are going to see us — you as the priceless opportunity and me as the ordinary girl who just got lucky to have you.

And maybe this is why it's so hard for me to imagine us walking on the road without turning a few heads and hearing people gossip about how I don't deserve you simply because I'm brown-skinned. It's so hard for me to imagine a wedding with you without all aunties constantly talking about how you could've chosen better simply because you are fair-skinned.