𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 ✓ (𝟷𝟾+)

The Pain

Arin

I got my heart broken;

By a love that wasn't meant to be.

And fell for a person;

Whose heart will never belong to me.

This poem resonated so much with me.

I wasn't responsible for Roger cheating on Stella. They had nothing, merely a contract for the merger and a deal to break away later. But the news didn't vitiate the lingering ache in my chest. It did nothing to suppress the bitterness of Roger's words from running down my mouth into all parts of my body.

With the documents in hand, I sat in evaluation. Standing in his room with dawn breaking right in front of me, my day had never felt gloomier. Sun was sneaking up from the horizon walking the world. Mine, felt darker as the light approached.

Roger was casual in mentioning his deal with Stella. He appeared even colder when I narrated his need to have me as the replacement. My heat was severed from its place and tossed into the trashcan. How naïve was I to think, if Roger came to know about who I was, things would be different.

I was the girl who looked up and wished upon a star. All she needed was the smack of reality. The star I wished upon had already died ages ago. It was a mere reflection of its dying light I saw. And dying entities can't grant wishes. I should know that from mom's experience.

"I would always look after you," she had promised on her death bed. I echoed in my ears but like a shooting star, it was a mere hope I placed on something that had long gone.

This very second I was also reminded of one of our conversations. The one question Roger asked me in particular, bobbed up in my mind.

Placing the stacks of papers aside, I got up from the seat I was slanted into. Since he narrated his knowledge and his reveal, my legs had given up on the hope of standing erect. I needed support after the heaviness of his news, his needs jerked my knees.

I had fathomed this day to go wrong in a million different ways but never assumed it would end up like this.

With the last bit of courage in me, scrapping at the barrel I mustered on before looking at him. "When we talked," his expressions changed. He knew I was referring to the calls. "You asked me if ever you would ask me on a date.."

He was quick to lean into his arms clenched over his chest. I felt as if he was trying to protect his heart before reeling out the truth. "Yes, I wanted to know because if you'd said yes, I had plans." Nodding, I let him continue. "It was before Stella. I wanted a professional to help me out."

That answer was what I was waiting for. The final nail hammered over my coffin of feelings.

There would come a time in life when you would be so deeply involved with a person, physically or spiritually that their actions, although not directed towards you, will still hurt. That was Roger for me.

He was the poison that even though wasn't ingested, was still hurting me from the bottle in which it was preserved. When I decided to leave the call centre job, I wanted to leave the life behind which came attached with it. I wanted to start afresh.

A newer step meant leaving Roger too. Somehow I clung to him. I held onto the idea of him and me like the corals which root themselves over the ropes of an anchor. When the rope would be reeled in through the narrow gap of the ship, the corals would be chopped off from their attachment with the sheer force of the pull and space through which it travelled.