Secret Love, Are You There?

This wasn’t how I wanted things to be.

I wasn’t asking for a fairy tale or a dream. I just wanted someone that made me smile. I wasn’t asking for true love. But I wanted something that made my heart beat fast, quicken my pulse, and make everything blur into the background but him.

I wasn’t asking for perfection. I was only asking for him.

As I lay there, my feet became chilled from being exposed to the summer night air. The numbness that began in my toes was creeping up my legs, drawing the warmth from their place, leaving emptiness and nothing in its place. My feet were easily becoming the coldest part of my body, on the outside, that is. However, I didn’t have the will or energy to readjust the blanket lying across me to cover my trembling feet. I didn’t care enough to do anything besides stay where I was, uncomfortable or not.

The light stationed on the wall to the left of my head flickered once and died out. I was tempted to forget trying to fix it and leave everything in darkness. I already didn’t want to ever move again and turning what was around me into shadows was tempting. I just craved peace and solitude.

There was a knock on my door and before I could respond my mother entered.

“What,” I asked my voice deadpan.

From the tone of my voice I could tell my mom knew this wasn’t the time for whatever she was going to say. “Never mind, Holly. Just please turn a light on in here.” And with that she retreated from my room, closing the door behind her.

With a sigh and a heave, I lifted my arm to twist the bulb into place. For a couple minutes I stared at the light, thinking beyond the walls of my room. All I wanted was for him to be here, and he didn’t even know.

But it didn’t even matter because he wasn’t mine for the taking.

Even thinking that sent rivulets of pain through my body. I hated this. I couldn’t have the one thing I desired more than anything, and I was hurting as a result of it. Sometimes, I would wrap my head around the facts that we would never happen and it could feel like weights were being pushed onto me, causing me to pull in shallow breaths of air and tears to run silently down my face, like it was now.

Finally, I tore my eyes away from the light, causing black spots to bloom across my vision, affecting my sight and blocking out sights I wasn’t seeing anyway. I moved my hand to my stomach, where my phone lay. I kept waiting for it to go off, signaling me that he’d finally remembered me. But nothing happened. He’d chosen her over me, and somehow I wasn’t so surprised. I knew it would happen. But ever the same, it hurt. Hope had a way of building up inside me, bubbling to the surface, an act to which I gave little consent to, but it never remained intact. Without delay, it deflated to nothing, numbness replacing it, leaving my insides raw.

I hated that one person could do this to me.
But I didn’t hate him.
I never could.