What’s more caring than having someone you love cook for you every day? When he feeds you, won’t your heart skip a beat? I dreamt about this moment, but I never found out about such a simple pleasure.

I expected sweet queries of delight, questions like How Are You? because I thought it would mean I Love You, but that never happened.

This was supposed to be a fantastic love story. He was a flying monkey that carried off my teenage years. A bitter case of unrequited love.

The thing with relationships is that there’s supposed to be a continuation. Except that there was no AND HE PROPOSED in this case. I found out that the price you pay for love is loneliness. That’s a condition that is inevitable.

What lies beyond the pain? Relief, maybe? More pain? What is the search for love but just a fool’s errand. He was a song that I wanted to listen to. But he was a playlist of sad songs that was on repeat. With no end in sight.

It was only after many moons did I know that he was just shit dressed up in gold. I found out too late that – People can be more than just one thing.

I knew that there was only one option and that was to – Give up a future together. What an elegant thought that was. That’s what I did.

It was only later on in life did I realize that Fortune behaves the way she wants. It was time to bootstrap towards a different story. Maybe with someone else. Someone else more deserving.

People who loved him can find him in the words he writes. He was a very long playlist filled with sad songs. But his act of indifference was an act of injustice. It was only fair that he suffered just like I did.

So I used his love of writing. He licked the tip of his pencil, wetting it so that the curves and whorls of his words became dark like unspoken secrets.

And, so I made sure that he wrote his last line. He licked his pencil, didn’t taste the cyanide, and fell down dead with half a thought waiting to be completed.

I, in time, didn’t remember him. Memories and life have a tendency to slip away just like the proverbial thief in the night.