It was very nice and subtle what we had. On my last week in the country, it was Thanksgiving day. We both travelled 150 kilometers away from the city with our families, but in opposite directions. My last weekend there and we were apart by 300 kilometres.
After dinner, we were chatting like always…when suddenly he was crazy to see me. He told me he was willing to drive for over three hours during the night, to come see me for a bit. He told me he wanted to see me and needed to. I told him that it would be a beautiful madness if he came. He gave me one condition: For me to confess my love to him. He’d come straight away if I was able to say how I felt about him…
I was a teenage girl, I was terrified of exposing myself that way. -And I still felt terrified for years- I was the most stupid back then because it was pretty obvious what we both felt, and it was in both directions. We were kinda exposed already. I said I wouldn’t say a word about feelings. That what we lived together during those three weeks should suffice as proof of how I felt. -I remember even having on my status something indirectly directed to him- I thought to myself that my status on Messenger said it all. He insisted, he asked me to please say it, he told me he was all-in but that first he needed to make sure, he needed to hear it from me. I kept playing dumb and didn’t give in. Stanley didn’t come to see me… -Gosh, what a baby I was- Thinking back, I cringe at my reaction, I swear. What was I thinking? Dumb indeed.
The following morning, Stanley broke my heart with his text:
+“I was thinking and you are right. This makes no sense, it’s pointless to let all these feelings between us grow. You are leaving in two days, there is nothing else to say”.
Stop! What? Then it hit me, he really meant it and only needed my verbal confirmation. I f*cked up. Damn. So silly of me! Why am I even surprised with his reaction? He was being completely rational, I screwed up. What else could he have said to that?
That’s all he needed from me to come running to my arms, to dive in. But I couldn’t handle it, I wasted such a magical moment. And I wasted it for being a coward, stupid, a baby, for playing it cool, just to not “expose myself and suffer”. Little I knew, I ended up suffering because of that and losing him to it. One of my most stupid acts in my life. I was only left with regrets when there was nothing else to do, wondering again and again: “What if I had dared?”, If I had let myself go with it, If I had let that love in, if I had let the bloody fear behind. What did I have lo lose by confessing my feelings anyway? That’s what he needed to give himself to me. On the contrary, choosing fear over love made me lose…
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It’s been over ten years from that story. Even now that I don’t think about him anymore, it’s inevitable to think of him as something pending every time I remember it. Regret my cowardice, keep wondering “What if…?”. In one way or another, I kinda am still waiting to see him again. To look at those blue eyes and give him a big hug. Even though it’s beyond late, I’d tell him how I felt back then, how it hurt me not being able to have said it when he needed it.
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