ghost of you

“Are you over him?” 

Sternly, yes. 

The door is closed. The chapter is locked — bolted shut.  But, sometimes, the human in me is tempted to peer through the lock. 

My brain chemistry was perhaps permanently altered. He made me feel a certain way about myself — he did not understand me, but he appreciated the enigma. “My angel.” At the beginning, it was in everything: the way we secretly held hands when our friends weren’t looking, the way he twirled my curls around his fingers when we were quiet and alone, the way he loomed over me when I was chopping vegetables, the way his breath felt on my collarbone, the way the cadence of his voice invaded my senses. It was simply in the way he looked at me. Softly. 

Admittedly, his predisposition to privacy and my predisposition to oversharing were not the best match. It is just the way we are as people — a perfect reflection of the cultures which raised us. One is rigid, and the other one is warm. Too warm. 

On one occasion, he could not understand why I wanted to cry when he admitted he was sick. That night, he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t stop hugging me — why he couldn’t let me go. He said: "I wasn't going to tell you. I didn't want you to worry." 

We often anticipated each other. What we needed. What we wanted. That simple elbow nudge to the ribs: “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t say it.” Eventually, it was in the way he fixed my hair when one of my unruly curls developed a mind of its own. 

I don't cook like I used to. On random Wednesdays, the sporadic ennui of what we once called routine used to creep in. I sometimes found myself standing still at the kitchen counter in my new apartment. I was waiting for someone. I waited for a call or a text — “Hey, I’m parking my bike. Don’t start without me.” Though, he was in another country. And I was, too. 

Sporadically, I feel a pang. Nowadays, I'm guarded. What was that — was that love? Were we just two lost souls who took solace in each other in the right place, at the wrong time? Ours was the intensity of a thousand angry Mediterranean suns. But, why was it so painfully intense? 

One night, we were dancing. He spun me around too hard. I twisted my ankle. He was adamant on not walking me home: he said that I should learn how to be more indepedent. Eventually, he gave in. He let me lean against his shoulder. His hands locked into mine. Then, as he made sure I was safe inside, he apologised. As always, I leaned in to kiss him. It was in the way he was so reluctant, that night, that I had the inevitable revelation. 

He was still chasing the ghost of a past love. I was trying to will him back into the land of the living. He got hurt, eventually. But not before he hurt me. He came back to me a wounded bird. Though, I did not have the energy to nurse him back to health and stunt his wing. 

I wanted him. I wanted nothing more than to resume our little affair. Though, he abandoned me. I no longer needed him.  I was an option. I suppose he was still haunted by a former love lost. 

I used to search for a sign in every gesture — every word. I willingly ignored the many red flags: the hurtful words he said to me when he was frustrated. It started off as a passionate whirlwind, yes. But then, it simmered down to a slow May breeze. It broke me, and he knew it. 

Every inside joke after that felt marred. Every lingering touch felt wrong. Every look: desperate and morbid. After, I tried my best not to gravitate towards him. At dinners. At parties. At events. He never stopped looking at me from across a room. Our friends who had been blissfully unaware of everything commented, eventually: "Did something happen between you two?" 

Some scarred part of me often begs to recreate all of this with someone new. It begs to be fed the love that could have been — it wanted to feel at least a flame of what bustled between he and I. But I promised myself that I would not be the one watching embers ebb into the nothingness of the pitch dark sky behind them, alone. Unfortunately, I now have self control. 

Decidedly, I do not want to be anyone's option. Nor do I want to be an object of temporary desire. I will burn myself alive before I let another man use me. Mm, how does that old adage go? Once bitten, twice shy. 

His apology reeked of remorse. It was sincere. A fickle thing, was that love of ours. Though, my heart was already too jaded to forgive him. 

The corridors he occupied inside my mind are empty now. Rarely do I hear his voice behind the door. Naturally, I wish him the best. Now, he's the one unravelling in the absence of me.