Five More Years

I was listening to your voice message a few minutes ago. The one you sent two days ago. And the irony is that when you friend zoned me back then, I didn’t feel hurt at all. I felt refreshed and was enjoying your description of that guy from Venezuela, with red hair and brown eyes. But now, when I heard it again, just to listen to your sweet and tender voice, my heart is shattered. I plug my headphones into my phone and play ‘Love me Like you do’. And then I sit, and think about you, and only you. I think about your jokes, the way you pronounce the letter ‘r’, the day we went to the Pup Café and how I thought it was a date, the message I wrote you to clear things up, your dimples when you said, “It’s alright, I love you anyways”, and patted me on the bum and numerous other memories we shared together. And while I’m sitting on my table, looking out the window and reminiscing the past, now listening to ‘Graveyard’, I ask myself one thing above all others. I ask myself, ‘What if?’

And as I try to answer that question, as my brain is filled with your pictures; filled with our pictures, my mind goes back to the day we met. The day, I finally found true love. Or so I thought. I pause the ongoing ‘Tere Bina’ and take off my headphones. I walk over to my desk, open the third drawer, the smallest compartment on the right, and take out the turquoise diary. Opening the well bound and neatly groomed book, I flip a few pages until my fingers point to the title on one of the pages, ‘The Day my Heart said Yes’. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and thus, I did something that any sane man would do. I went to the kitchen, took out a packet of Tasty Nuts, got a bottle of Thums Up from the fridge and started reading.

Reading that diary, thoughts just kept coming back to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You were the definition of perfect in my dictionary, Radhika. You were the wax to my candle and the thread to my needle. I had never imagined meeting someone like you until I did. Coming off a hard breakup with someone I thought was my “soulmate”, I didn’t feel I could trust anyone anymore. But there’s an exception to every rule Radhika. And that exception was you my darling. You made me much more open than I thought I could ever be. and I sincerely thank you for that.

But I am not writing this letter to explain why I am good boyfriend material. Or because I want to show-off that I write well. I am writing this because I can’t take this anymore. Just like I couldn’t two days ago. I couldn’t digest the Instagram posts where you were with other guys. The picture of you with that guy, under mistletoe, nobody would’ve viewed that picture so many times. But I did. Not because you looked gorgeous or beautiful in that picture. You look stunning in all of your pictures. It was because each time I saw that picture, it was a reminder for me to make you mine. It was a reminder that there were numerous guys out there, unworthy of you, who would die to even talk to you. And it’s not that you couldn’t make a decision. I knew you were capable. I just didn’t want to see what would happen next. I couldn’t live with it Radhika, you were mine. All mine. I could picture ourselves together.

Both of us senior journalists in Melbourne, working for ABC, two kids, a faithful Labrador and a wonderful house in the suburbs. I’d collect the paper in the morning, sit down with the family, drink a cup of coffee, get the kids ready for school, give them a bite to eat and then the two of us would drop them to school. And then, I’d take you to the Italian café downtown, we’d order some hot chocolate and sourdough, I’d make an excuse to go to the bathroom, I’d sneak out of the response, cross the road, visit the florist opposite and pick out the two best poppies for you. I’d enter the café, you’d be surprised mouth wide open, I’d stand there with my horrible smile and you’d laugh to yourself, walk up to me and we would share the most amazing kiss. And we would enjoy it thoroughly. Everyday. And you wouldn’t get tired of it. Even for a second.

And as these thoughts popped into my head, I heard a knock on the iron rods. Wearing a navy-blue vest, he handed me my orange overalls, ironed, clean and neat. And then I glanced at the sole window, seven feet high, which was my metaphor for freedom, and I said to myself, “Five more years Raghu. Five. More. Years.”