“I love you.”
I watched as a frown slowly creep into her beautiful face. My world started spinning, my heavy breathing doubled.
I imagined this scenario a hundred, if not thousand, times already. Some ended happily with her, throwing her arms around me in a hug that speaks volume and depth. It was those moments that I got this insane courage to stood up and tell her what I feel. And it was one of these moments, right here in front of me, that held me back for years.
The deafening silence, the frown on her face and the emerging distance between us.
“Why?” Her beautiful eyes blinked, forehead creasing even more. She eyed me as if I am one of those people she studied for years: mad and screwed in the head.
If I am not in the receiving end of that look, I might have shook my head.
I opened my mouth to answer her question but none came. One might have thought I should have seen this coming but over the hundred possibilities I imagined, I never got to form an answer to that question.
Why do I love her?
I'm not sure. I don't really keep tabs of why or when it all started. Did anybody ever bother to do that?
How should I answer that question?
“Why?” She pressed, causing my head to spin as well, before she waved her hand in a dismissing manner. “Don't answer. You don't love me. You're just curious. I'm just a curiosity for you.”
She blinked and the frown is gone, replaced with a patient smile. The one she mostly give to her patients.
My heart ached at the sight. It suddenly felt like I lost the war even before it started. She already made a conclusion in her mind and, God, in the years I've known her, I know I'm already out of the playing court.
Case closed.
I know that not all feelings are reciprocated just like how not all efforts are rewarded, but knowing it is lightyears away from feeling the rejection.
Acceptance doesn't guarantee less pain. It didn't even dull it.
“See, you think you love me because we're always together and you learned to care for my well-being as well I do to you,” she started explaining. “But that's not love.”
“Who knows what is love?” I rasped, surprised I still have control over my body to speak.
“Nobody, really, which is why I don't believe in it. You're just curious. You want to know me more: my habits, my quirks and the smallest details about me. You may want to be with me more. But those things pass over time.” She pursed her lips. “I don't think love exists. It's all just curiosity and fear. People who are curious of each other and haven't ended it after all the hurdles, eventually marry. They call marrying as settling down. Settling down as if life stops moving after marriage. Settling down as if you've already got your high and it's about time you go down.”
She vehemently shook her head, a habit she does whenever a topic is too incredulous that she doesn't even want to talk about it but forced to do so. “People don't feel love, they're just afraid to grow old on their own, to eventually die on their own. People get kids to continue their legacy, it's human nature, to pass their genes and to make sure someone will be there for them when they're old and dying.”
I watched her talk because I couldn't do anything more. I watched her talk as I tell myself the hundred things I will miss if she choose to cut ties after this: the mornings we had to endure after drinking to death the night before; the numerous trip to random places at unconventional times; her simplest attire of uncombed hair, bare face, faded shirt and pajamas while procrastinating on her couch; and, the focused look on her face whenever she watches an interesting documentary.
