DOS GARDENIAS PARA TI

13. LOVERS THAT COULD NEVER BE

It's almost been two weeks that we've not spent together.
How is it that I find time elongated in comparison to whenever we spent all day, every day, together?

"I've missed you," I whispered as I stood close to you.
You only smiled. That smile.
A smile that knows how chained my heart is for you.
A smile that knows, perhaps only in the depths of your mind, the power you've been bestowed.
You spoke in the same words you used whenever I left for two months— to this I glared.
"Don't be toxic," you laughed.
I couldn't help but smile sheepishly.
It dawned on me then just how this game was getting out of hand—
The one where I pretended to be toxic.

"Ay," Artemis laughed. "You're so toxic over her."
"It's Love," I claimed, as if that were a self-explanatory answer.
Artemis only raised her eyebrows, looking at me suspiciously.
I don't ever deny nor claim anything and perhaps this raises confusion.

And it perhaps doesn't help when everyone else wishes to join this game.
Aphrodite who blows me kisses and tells me she loves me.
Angel who holds my hand and reaches to hug me.
Hebe who leans close, whispers in my ear, and openly flirts.
'Tis all a game.
And for some reason, people have felt comfortable enough to show this side around me all the time.
Perhaps I should feel honored that they feel safe enough to do so—
Perhaps I should feel flattered that they trust me like so.
But when your eyes gaze upon these actions, I fear giving off the wrong impression.

"I'm trying to enter my whore era," I claim as I look at you.
How stupid am I?
To not want to give you the impression of something that I'm not?
And say stuff like this?
I feel that I must for if I don't, you'd know just how I feel of you.
If you don't already.

"It's sickeningly obvious," friend said.
"She's clueless," I respond.
"Is she, though?"

"Did you ever have a crush on anyone recently?" I remember asking.
"I mean I did a few months ago on someone," you said.
"Oh?"
"But even then that faded away," you shrugged.
Who could it have been?
When you didn't even go to school then?
When you didn't even have new friends outside the same friends that you did?
Who could it have been?
Months back, I still flirted with you.
Perhaps not to the scale that I do now—
But I still did.

"What if I dressed up as Oberon?" I teased.
"If you did I'd dress up as Titania," you replied, winking.
"Shit, really?"
"Of course."
"We'd be a power couple."
"We would."

"A playlist name?" You asked.
"Yeah—"
"I can never come up with anything aesthetic," she said. "Only one playlist."
There she showed me her playlist:
"Lovers that could never be"
And there was a picture of Titania and Oberon.
You pulled it away quickly before continuing on your rant, as if not to give me enough time to process the image.

You said something about liking the idea of reincarnation.
That you liked the idea of a soul having not loved enough for something,
For someone,
That it had to be reborn in order to fulfill that need.
"I've always said I was some depressed poet from the Renaissance," I teased. "A poet inspired by his unrequited heartbreak! Oh how I wrote sonnets and poems for a dame that never loved me! How my heart longed for her but she never looked my way."
Your eyebrows raised, a smile spreading from corner to corner.
"So love stricken was I that it killed me!"
"Shit really?"
"Oh yes," I clutched my chest. "But. . ."
I looked at you, and your cheeks began to tint.
"It seems life has been kind enough to allow me to find her again. . . in you," I leaned in, smirking a bit just to watch that blush in your cheeks spread more.

You smiled as you rubbed my back.
"I just don't want to hold you back. I don't want you to stay just for me when I know you can sleep or get stuff done—"
"How about you ask me regardless and not make that decision for me?" I bickered, playfully glaring.
You shook your head and laughed again, squealing as you felt cornered.
"Stop being toxic," you reiterated.
"Stop neglecting me."
You looked at me with a guilty smile.
But there was that guilt again—
That maybe I might've taken this playful bickering a bit too far.
"I'm sorry," instantaneously I said.
"Don't be."
"No, this toxic game is getting out of hand. Maybe I will actually get like this."
"You won't—"
"It's too much teasing."
You called me by my name, looked at me, and with a low voice, you whispered these words the same way that you did whenever you crave someone.

"I love the teasing."

      I looked at her. There was this tint in my cheeks as I recognized the sound of this specific voice.

"Don't say that. I can't like you more than I already do."