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The act of touch as comfort always appealed to me.
If someone cried, my automatic reaction was to rush forward and embrace them, rub their back soothingly, whisper words of comfort.
I later realized that this was another "too much" habit of mine. I was so ready to give instant comfort, instant gratification. I never calculated all the ways that kind of closeness could hurt me later.
After I tried talking to Zunair at his house, I tried for many days afterwards, too. I called him, texted him, tried showing up to his house again. But he wasn't answering any of my calls or texts, so I couldn't just ring his doorbell if he wasn't coming outside. I didn't want to get him or myself in trouble by risking our relationship's exposure if his family opened the door.
So I tried to reach out to his friends. His closest one, Umair, told me that he needed some time alone and wasn't ready to talk to me right now.
That stung more than anything. Whenever I was stressed, angry, or upset, I either holed myself up in my room and sulked quietly or I texted Zunair. Sometimes I met him in secret. He would rub his fingers over my hand, listen to me rant, and brush strands of hair away from my face.
His touch, so soft and careful, always brought me comfort.
But it hurt to know that mine didn't do the same to him.
So when he was the one upset with me, when he was the one whose touch I couldn't rely on for comfort, I became really uneasy. My fingers itched to caress his cheeks, my skin felt empty without his comforting hands. Most of all, I felt uneasy and exposed without his arms around me as a protective vessel.
I had become so dependent on him as my solace. Seeing him warmed my heart, holding his hand made me temporarily forget my mind's problems.
So when you hang on to something so dearly to give you life, what happens to you when it disappears?
I can tell you what happens because it happened to me.
I became unsteady. Unbalanced. Teetering precariously off the edge.
