RE: Umm, Crush? (How It Went)

 

HER

 

In about five months from now, I will read this and nearly die of cringe because by then I would have been completely free from loving you.

 

Some questions I’d ask myself in five months might include:

 

“What did you see in him?” 

 

“How did you look at this person and feel affection?”

 

“What was wrong with you?”

 

This is how love goes for some of us. 

 

You meet a person, you are smitten by them, they seem to like you back, and things go smoothly for a few weeks—or months if the universe is being generous—until they begin to change. 

 

Until the fact that you cannot lead a conversation to their taste—even though you are the parrot in your previous affairs—starts to become a problem—even if it wasn’t a cause for complaint in the beginning. 

 

Until they have decided that they have to make money, which means you and them can no longer be in the same picture. 

 

Until they decide that they do not see a future with you, even though at a point, it was the first thing that came to their mind when they closed their eyes to think about you.

 

I will not deny the fact that I am a better writer than I am a speaker. I bless God that you don’t mind reading, but maybe, I shouldn’t have placed the conversational aspect of our relationship on your shoulders. However, saying this would seem as though I am accepting that you did all the talking, while I did all the laughing. Now, that in itself is a big, fat lie. 

 

This is my truth: You like to talk, and in those first few weeks when you rarely gave me room to speak during conversations, I decided it was best to just listen. Little did I know that it would become a problem.

 

I miss you more than I can explain. Regardless, I’ll try.

 

I miss you the way Nigerians have missed the rain this past month. 

 

I miss how you liked and loved me and how you were not scared of showing it.  I miss how the energy was mutual. 

 

I miss your laughter, your jokes—how you tell them so effortlessly. 

 

I miss how open you were to me. Not every day, one finds a person who trusts them wholly, but I found you.

 

I miss what could be, and I miss what was–even if I didn’t experience it, but of course, none of this matters to you anymore. Feelings are no longer a trademark you wish to associate with. I honestly desire that was not the case, but it is what it is

 

Last night, my heart broke all over again when you asked me what you needed to apologize for. Before anything, we were friends. Good friends. While I know it is almost impossible to go back to being just friends, I wish you would have acknowledged the fact that at some point, you were no longer there for me when I needed you—when my deadlines were threatening to end my life, when home was not nice, when the responsibilities were weighing me down, when I was scared for my future. I always reached out to you to know how you were faring, but I never got the same energy back. 

 

I don’t want to go out with you as much as you don’t want to go out with me. I love you, that is a fact. One that I had to come to terms with when I saw that things were beyond my control.

 

However, I am fully aware that love is never enough. Love is the barest minimum. There are other things that neither of us can provide for the other. I know this. I know this. 

 

You and I in a romantic relationship now will be disastrous. It is not what I want, but what can I do with all this love I have for you in my chest? How do I handle the way I lose my breath whenever I see you? The pounding heart, the adoration, the anxiety, and finally, the sadness that comes with knowing you don’t love me back anymore? How do I handle it? How do I smile at you in public when you have hurt me in secret? I cannot pretend, Alaska.

 

I am not invalidating your struggles and frustrations with life. I sympathize with you. I have shown you this countless times. I have wanted nothing more than for you to let me in on your burden constantly. I cannot give you the money you desire but I can pray. 

 

I did not fall in love with you overnight. I never wanted this to happen. It started slow and gradually turned into something beautiful before it got sour. I have known you for four years, and in the first 3 and half years, you were at best, someone I was simply aware of—someone I never cared to give a second glance whenever I saw them, but here we are now. The universe never ceases to amaze me.

 

What do we do from here? Do we go back to being good friends? Will you choose to make an effort? To show that you care? Will you admit your true feelings (good or bad) and get all of this done with?

 

What do I do with my feelings now? Grind and boil them till they turn to powder?

 

HIM

 

I’m going to save and read this every day. 

 

Okay, I think we should go back to being best of friends. 

 

Maybe, the love we let into our friendship, threw me off balance 

 

Maybe, I’m more friendly and loving when I’m not talking about love-love. 

 

Can you be my friend again? The one I shared my burden, my worries, and good times with?

 

Maybe the pressure of loving makes me look cruel.

 

I apologize for that though.

Or, maybe I don’t just know how to love.