`only unfulfilled love can be romantic'
I still remember the first day I saw him. It was at school, outside the principal's office. He was there with two of his friends. A transfer student from another school, waiting to fill in the paperwork needed to begin studying at ours.
I'd just walked out of the building and found him a few yards in front of me, sitting under an ancient banyan tree, forms in hand, engrossed in conversation with his buddies. I'd heard of the term `love at first sight,' many times before, and found it to be extremely amusing, until the experience came crashing down on my head like a meteor sent from the heavens for the sole purpose of changing my life forever. His face was angelic; there was a glow about it that I cannot explain. Our eyes met only for the shortest moment but I knew that I was in love. I couldn't give away any of my feelings however and couldn't get caught gawking at a boy in school. It was just wrong, people would not approve and call me names, so I hurried away, acting unfazed, cool as a cucumber, trying to look popular. What I hadn't imagined however was that he'd thought the same way about me at that time.
When school began, I saw him there. I'd join in as the guys would ask him questions about his old school and all the other obvious stuff teenagers talk about when they're in the 11th grade. He was tall, had flawless skin and a face that would make me cry at night for not being able to kiss and hold it in my hands. He'd stare at me, clearly mesmerized as well. I knew he liked me, yes in that way!! But I didn't have the slightest clue as to what to do about it. What if people found out, what if he was just being friendly? We started chatting online, and he asked me why I was always so quiet. I acted cool and popular and said some crap in return.
I'd scan the crowds in school to be able to see his sun kissed blondish hair, desperately seeking out his face in a crowd of irrelevant people. He was the boy of my dreams and I was the boy of his. The problem was, none of us had the guts to do anything about it. My affair with him was limited only to my imagination and the rare staring competitions we'd have when no one was looking. The whole ordeal became painful. He'd sit by me and I'd feel his leg touching mine; there was a satisfaction in the touch that made me ecstatic. I think I was too good an actor, maybe I just didn't give away too much of how I felt for him. In fact the irony of it all is that I usually shunned him away. He'd once put his arm around my shoulders as we walked to our cars after school, with our friends around us. There was nothing unusual about it, but I shrugged his arm off, scared that I'd be so lost in the sheer pleasure of the moment that I might alert someone about my secret savoring of an act as insignificant as that. I fucked it all up. Me and my prudish ways! My desire for him was boundless and I'd listen to corny music and dedicate songs to our love. It was a very profound time in my life and there are times when I wonder whether I have not wholly fallen out of love with him even today.
I remember the moments that keep his memory alive in my mind. The time when he rested his head on my shoulder in a movie theatre for the briefest instance, his eyes staring into mine for what seemed like eons. A connect between us we both felt, but couldn't prove to each other or confront ourselves with, lest it turn out to be a figment of our imaginations. It was the happiest state of being and the saddest at the same time.
A year went by and we learnt how to not acknowledge the connect. I still had the same feelings but I'd just become better at hiding them. I don't know whether he felt the same then though. It was not detectable. No more staring marathons, no more chatting online. We became distant and weary of the tension between us, at least I did. To hide my love for him subliminally, I'd sometimes say something stupid about him to a friend and as though the god's were against our pairing from the beginning, he'd more often than not find out about it. It was ditto for me, I'd stumble upon some piece of gossip that he'd said about me and start fuming. The fact that we were both extremely intelligent and egoistic people also made things difficult. If I could go away and live on a disserted island with him tomorrow, I would. But I fought with him relentlessly and connived and manipulated myself into his bad books. At the end of school, we officially hated one another, I also still loved him a bit. Try to wrap your head around that fucked up fact. I once sat down with him and apologized about all the things I'd done and said that we should just forget it all. He in turn quizzed me about the trivial matter and I began to believe that he was not still in love with me and it was the deceit and enmity that had held on to him. There was no point in trying to bring things back to normal. They were far too fucked up.
A few years ago he married a beautiful girl. I didn't attend his wedding. I was out of the country. The two made a pretty couple, him with his perfectly Aryan looks and she with her demure yet elegant ways. I hated her secretly, but would think of her to be the luckiest human being on the planet. They looked so in love, but I knew his secret. It wasn't for nothing that the man by her side had stared in my eyes and made me weak at the knees. It wasn't for nothing that we texted each other ten years after we left school on our birthdays. The love was still somehow, in some shape alive.