It really, truly, sincerely SUCKS.

I’m in love with a man who is in love with someone else and it sucks.

If my life were a movie, I’d decide enough was fucking enough and act on my feelings. I would tell myself that it was wrong to be sitting around holding such legendary love and not give it a fair shot. I didn’t have much choice in the matter, really.

I would go over to his place right now, unconcerned about it being the middle of the night. I’d impatiently knock at his door and he would open it; bleary, disgruntled face turning into shocked and if I were being ambitious, happy, to see me.

My breath would catch in my throat.

Did he know? That I was finally going to say out loud what we both knew ever since we first kissed in the hidden corner of a slightly seedy bar, the hectic lights of the IT corridor flashing past us on the busy road below.

I would push past him into the house, shrugging a disgruntled “hey what’s up?” at his curious roommate smoking at the ears from his bong. I’d make a beeline for his terrace and he would follow me up, trembling with a quiet thrill.

****
His biggest grouse was that we never had silent cuddles. Three minutes into the embrace — “Can I ask you something?”
He chuckled.
“Can I stop you?”

He could. He could bring my whole world to a crashing halt if he so wanted.

“Do you think you could love me?”
My heart was thudding so loud in my throat, I’m surprised it didn’t poke him square in his neck where I was buried; eyes squeezed tight in anticipation of his answer.

The smallest of a swallow trembled against my open lips.
“I do love you,” he said quietly.

Disappointed, I smiled sadly into his neck.

Everything unspoken hung in the air between us. He got his silent cuddle.

*****

It had been a good six months since we had made love. And much more of a forever since we talked about it.

*****

I’d take a deep breath and turn around to face him as he cautiously shut the door and turned to face me — curious, with trepidation. I would force myself to look into his eyes; it would cost me every shred of courage I possessed.

We would stand there for a beat; me teetering on the edge of speech, him, waiting.

And then without thought or caution, everything would explode from my chest with the force of a set of speakers blasting salutations at the break of dawn in a temple festival.

I’d tell him I loved him. No, no, I would have to tell him I was in love with him because the idiot needed to hear the distinction. I’d pepper it throughout my romantic soliloquy and he’d still look at me, dazed, wanting to deny that there was something between us that he just could not lie to himself about anymore.

I’d see recognition shimmer behind his frames as I described sleepless nights and fantasies of a future that were sure to have visited him as well.
He’d gulp. Try to dissuade me, but the words would catch in his throat.
When the woman who loved you the only way you had ever desired to be loved was finally admitting it to you, there’s only so many times you can lie comfortably.

I would wait. Wait for you to admit you had been a coward. Wait for you to take the few steps to cross the ocean that stretched out between us and tell me that you would come for me, eventually. Would I wait?

Would I? I take this shot in the dark wanting to believe more than anything that I could not be wrong in recognizing the thrumming of love between two people, forbidden as it may be.

But if on that night you stay silent for longer than I could defend I would have to turn on my heels and walk out.

We will not have sex, not anymore.

We may well continue to have conversations into the night, hours melting away along with the velvety blackness and making way for the crack of dawn. We will speak till our voices grow hoarse but there will be a chasm between us that neither of us can build a bridge over.

We will leave more and more unsaid. We will grow more and more resigned. Unsatisfied.

*****

Lying awake on yet another churning night this is exactly what I wish I could do. Take that damn shot in the dark and find an answer, whatever it may be.
I would rather know than sit with and on my feelings, rebuke every other persons feelings — all in the pursuit of this unspoken relationship with a man who claimed to belong to another.

She cannot make your voice smile. I am a petulant child, sulking over not being your favorite. It is unbecoming of everything I have known about growing into a strong woman, but there it is. She cannot make your voice smile. I can.

They say after heartbreak #26 your heart stops galloping but I wish I could show you how my damn feelings for you seemed to be settling into my chest with a vice-like grip.

Gallop be damned, I was thundering.

But there’s one thing you don’t know.
I am a coward, too.

You were going to settle and I would be watching from the sidelines knowing that I cannot blame you for the lack of an us. For all my talk of a rich life filled with laughter, fogged breath, rain-soaked romance and coffee on the moon, I was a coward too.

The stakes, for you, were infinitely higher and the only thing standing between me and my pursuit of this legendary love was my fear that you will not love me back. That you will shake your head sadly, and say “‘I’m sorry.”

So I will erase this romantic gesture of confessions and confusions.

I will put you in my poems. My stories, my scripts, my songs.

All with you at arms length, recognizing every reference.

But you won’t for long, because I am in love with you, you are with someone else, we will never be able to know how earth shattering a you and me us might have been and it really, truly, sincerely SUCKS.