DADDY

Tired Butterfly

My hands were shaking even as I held the pen.

While I was trying to solve the test, the very short but memorable moment I had with Karan kept replaying in my head over and over again.

His eyes...

His hands...

His voice...

While everything attracted me to him, I kept reminding myself what an ordinary, insignificant girl I was.

Aysel realised it too, as did the rest of the class, but she didn't push the issue too far to support me.

I had so many dreams about Karan in my head... When I suddenly realised that all of them had the possibility of coming true, the world became a different place for me.

It's as impressive as I imagined it would be. On the other hand, he saw me, he knows my name. He only asked my name in class. I like that.

Still, I couldn't concentrate while solving the test. For the first time in my life, I waited so long for a question.

Is it normal for everything to suddenly become so unimportant? Not the university exam, not my friends, not anything else. Even food suddenly became unimportant. I haven't eaten, I don't feel hungry. I have a pain in my stomach, but it doesn't feel bad.

As if a void was filled. With Karan, my dreams also made sense. Before, I often reminded myself of how flighty I was, but now I realised that it wasn't so.

So how did it happen?

Did I feel him? I don't know... But whatever the reason for it, I feel so good. I feel like I'm going to fly up into the air. As if the weight were lifted off me, I'd suddenly find myself in the blue skies... But the weights are heavier than ever. There are dark clouds in my brain. Every time I look at this test in particular, I realise how difficult it is to focus on. The point is not to solve the question anyway but to focus... He told the class, though. We don't have to do it. We have to try. The problem is, I don't even try. If he asked me the questions, I wouldn't even know.

That's no good.

I want to be someone who cares about him. The first step is to care about his class. He is already a maths teacher, so don't care if you want to. Those who do maths get ahead in the exam.

Oh, Karan... It would be nice if you became a literature teacher or something. Now I have to make zero mistakes in maths. Even one mistake is fine, in fact making mistakes is a good scenario for me right now. I'm too unfocused to make a mistake. I'm about to go crazy.

I looked outside... The weather's a bit strange these days. Very hot during the day and very cold at night. There seems to be no middle ground. It's like my mood, when I'm with Karan or in my dreams I fly, when I'm without him I fall to the ground. There's no middle...

I felt like I was going crazy for a while because I was worried about the future, but I don't think so anymore. The future is not so important, I realised with Karan what it means to live in the moment. How strange... While I have so many feelings for him, he probably doesn't have one special, different feeling for me. What happened to me today happened by chance. It won't happen again. Or maybe he did it just because he thinks I'm not interested in the class. I see everything as good, or I want to see everything as good, but maybe things are not like that at all. Time will tell.

My patience is wearing thin.

It's like time slowed down.

Is that what happens when you fall in love? Does time slow down, or does it just feel that way? Or is time the same time? 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours... It's all the same. It hasn't changed. But I've changed, my perception has changed.

I need to learn something about him.

I dropped the test and took out my phone. I immediately started looking for him online. Instagram, Facebook... Everywhere...

There are a few people who look like him, so they're similar in name. They have the same surname.

Interestingly, Karan does not have much presence on the internet. Normally, when I'm curious about someone, I immediately find a lot of information on their Instagram account, even if it's closed.

But Karan was absent...

It didn't seem to be on the Internet. It's weird... This feeling... It's weird. Because when someone's not on the Internet, it's like they don't exist. But he exists, I've seen him. I've even spoken to him. I just find it interesting that he doesn't have a profile. I can understand other dinosaur teachers, but this guy's not that old.

Surprisingly, I'm still seeing him tomorrow.

Even this is good news for me. At least all these things don't continue to live inside my head, they somehow managed to belong to this world too. Because I have no idea how I would have coped with this disappointment if Karan hadn't been like in my dreams.

I tried to erase all the thoughts in my head and focus on the test again. Even though it's hard, I'm trying because there's no other way for me to understand Karan's intentions towards me. If I don't look at the test at all, I'll never know if he asked my name because I wasn't interested in the class or because he was curious about me. If he was curious about me, he will show a similar interest in the future. And he has to do this even if I am interested in the lesson. Otherwise, it is nothing but my delusions.

I have a messed up life...

I put the pen down and started to stare blankly at the wall. I keep dreaming unnecessary dreams for a man who doesn't care about me at all.

I'm pathetic.

Maybe this is exactly what Aysel calls a teacher's fantasy. Maybe I thought I was different for nothing. I'm not different from them, I just had to be in the right place at the right time. And that was Karan's gift.

I don't know...

I'm not feeling well at the moment.

It's best to sleep...

I switched off the lights again and lay down on my bed. I kept thinking about the way he looked at me, his strong voice and the words he said. I wonder how long I stopped when he asked me my name. At that moment, I passed out, and my brain stopped. Time had stopped for me, but it continued for the class.

I won't let it happen again. I'm not like that. What made me strong before was that I closed myself off and somehow, unlike others, I was a numb person. I don't want to lose that, because I've seen my friends who always dreamed like that end up disappointed and seriously devastated at the end of the day. I don't want that to happen to me in any way.

I don't want to be emotional. Yes, it's nice to feel something, but it's scary to put myself at risk. I already have to deal with a lot of crazies at home...

And then there's this, isn't there...

It's dangerous to daydream, it makes you feel unnecessarily good. But the real world is a very different place. Whatever troubles I had at home, I forgot them in this process. But they continue to exist there. Even if I ignore them, even if I avoid breakfast, even if I never talk to my brother, I can't escape from it. I live with them, after all. But I somehow shelved them along with Karan.

Now it's time to get back to reality.

I'll stay the morning and go to school like nothing happened.

I don't want to be influenced by anyone.

And I will not be affected... From anyone...