First it starts with a random photo you did not ask for. You were by yourself in the library scraping every book, journal and websites for materials to hit the distinction mark in your essay when the unsolicited picture reared its head. You glanced at it, reviewed the number and the name to be sure you weren’t dreaming. You searched your mind to pick up clues on why she would send you a picture of herself at beach. Up until this moment you have just been coursemates — the hello/hi kind of people. But this is just the beginning — the beginning of another circle of uncertainty and emotional disarray.
The picture served as a foundation for what would be 6 weeks of constant communication, picture exchanges and back and forth jokes. You both learnt how each others day went, how many steps you guys walked in a day, cooked for each other, helped out in emergencies and learnt of each others bad habits like frying chicken at 2am. It felt like you were cruising on a boat late at night as the breeze played tag with your skin. It was beautiful.
The ironic thing about beautiful moments that spring up unexpectedly is that you have to work hard to keep them alive. How do you preserve a flame that sprang up on you without knowing its source? In hindsight you wish you had slowed down. You should have let time run its race and understood that sometimes it is foolishness to let your heart move swiftly. It happened so fast and you failed to ask the tough questions like what if she was bored?, what if you were a distraction she needed to avoid the aching pain of rejection she got from a job she wanted? what if it was a game and you were a prop in her grand scheme of things?
Each conversation taught you of your differences. Though you have been taught that opposite attract and there is beauty in diversity, she wanted someone that looks like what she sees in the mirror — maybe she sold it well for you to believe it was her reason for walking away. It is better than admitting that she just got bored and left.
You will grieve this loss. You wont blame her nor the pain of her past that reset her orientation. You will blame yourself for jumping without looking. At dusk, your mind will travel back to the library and you will lay curses for responding with so much enthusiasm. You will call yourself unskilled in the matters of the heart because you should have known that you do not follow the leadership of a masked ‘man’. How can you trust the leadership of someone that has refused to show you their face?
