“Why does it hurt so much,” I ask myself this very often and still can’t manage to get any answer. Maybe to get the answer I have to go back to where all of this started just like we say “Mushkilo ko jar se khatam Karna chahiye”.

So, the story begins like this -

It was 2018, I was on the verge of becoming an adult ‘officially’. To describe myself I would like to use just three words- moody, overthinker and romantic (a hopeless one though). I have a small family, few close friends and a bunch of relatives who never fail to judge others and of course that includes me also, so basically, I’m not the sort-of person in my life but still somehow managed to get myself stuck with anxiety which never goes away and the void or the feeling of emptiness never leaves me (obsessed with me you know). Yes, I know according to some people this may be dramatic just because I’m still under 18 so, I can’t feel anything traumatizing right? Never mind let us move on to the main chapter of my life...

Somewhere in my heart, it felt like I’m not being loved enough not even by my family and that’s a whole different story so let it be for now, I don’t want to go that down the road. I was in search for love and that too a fairy-tale kind of love which can never exist and this took me years to understand. But the main thing is I never met someone who can meet my expectations and so I would just run away from that ‘someone’, but guess what? Another boy entered I mean tried to enter but I let him stay at the door and restrained him from taking any further steps and that’s where everything changed.

Let’s call that boy ‘Romeo’. Romeo was in the same college as mine but I never really saw him until that one rainy day when he just popped out of nowhere with a rose, oh sorry with a journal in his hands and stood right in front of me. He was literally staring at my ‘not so pretty’ face for more than a minute and trust me that was too awkward even though his shyness was clearly visible. He made me get wet I mean it was raining heavily. He took 1 minute 20 seconds to gather courage and propose me that too not by saying those three magical words. He asked me, “I like you and if you allow me, we can move to a new stage” and by that he meant to get into a relationship if I allow him. I did not. His words were definitely not enough to melt a girl’s heart who fantasizes a lot.

But you know what? I think that’s where I made a mistake. He told me, “I will wait”, and he did until I made him lose hope. I made him lose hope in love while he made me realise that cheesy lines are not what a person needs, in fact, it’s the tenderness, it’s the feeling of being taken care of by someone which makes everything blissful. I took so much of time to realise this and boom! It’s over. Romeo is gone. I wanted to chase him until he turns back and smiles at me, and I did that.

I went to the seashore where I was told by him that “I will propose to you right here one day that too in a Bollywood style just how you like it”, so somewhere I felt that he will be there waiting for me. I saw him, he was waving at someone, I thought it was me so I took a step forward with a sunflower in my hands (because he loves them) only to realise that it was not me at whom he was waving. A girl came. He holds her hand and they started to dance as if Romeo has finally found his Juliet. It started to rain, but that didn’t stop them from falling for each other. I saw love for her in his eyes which was once for me but I couldn’t have the same for him and now that I have it feels like my love train got delayed. But the rain was always there to watch Romeo-Juliet, unbothered by the fact who plays the role of Juliet.

Let me conclude all of this now. He fell for me but I didn’t but then, when I finally fell for him, he’s gone forever. Now who was at fault? Me? Who took so long to realise that fairy-tale love doesn’t exist? or His fault who was supposed to wait for me but lost hope that easily? Or the time who didn’t perform well in our ‘never existing love story’?

When I look back, there’s nothing I see except regret. I can’t stop myself from thinking what would have happened if I confessed my love to him that rainy night and maybe that’s why it hurts. I’ve been locked in my own heart, and mind and falling apart day by day being locked even when the door is wide open. Everything accelerated so fast in my life that I couldn’t even take a gasp about it, anyways Happy 20th to me, Cheers to that.

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