“Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories” It was a cold evening and at my apartment, I was trying to warm myself with a cup of coffee. I was in my bedroom sitting on my old wooden chair staring outside the window admiring the wonders of the sunset. The dying sun had just painted the clouds with its golden stroke. (It reminded me of the evenings I spent at my valley.) Suddenly I felt a vibration; an Instagram notification popped up on my screen. As soon as I opened It, I was startled; a message from her(my ex’s) boyfriend. I didn’t have enough courage to open the message. And it stayed in my message request for days. It bothered me every second what was it about. Maybe he just knew about me from her and wanted to talk. Maybe he wanted to know something from me. Or maybe he wanted to tell me something. What could really be the thing that he wanted to say to me? Not that we recently broke up and there was some unsettled business. Not that i was her last boyfriend before him. It had been roughly 1300 days; 1299 to be precise. So him massaging me all of sudden made no sense at all. That kept me in chaos for days until I finally collected some courage to open the message. The fear was not about what he would say but will i be able to accept everything that will be said. I knew that he will speak of the ‘truth’ that she is his now, but I was living with my own version of reality that contradicts his. Even after 4 years, I wasn’t ready to accept that she is gone. But I couldn’t let it bother me anymore so I hesitantly opened his massage.
“Hey…, need to talk to you About some important stuff Drop me a message asap,” I asked whats was it about? The reply didn’t come that night. Another sleepless night passed by. The next day I was at my apartment off from work. He replied that it was about her. He said it was about her pictures on my Instagram. “Why are her pictures on your Instagram?” I didn’t have any pictures of her. I knew he meant to say all those painting, sketches, and digital drawings of us. Some were recently done, some ages ago when we were together. I looked at the painting of us on my messy study table and half a dozen of them beneath. Why I still have them? I asked myself. My mind couldn’t find an answer. Heart screamed, “BECAUSE I LOVE HER”. It echoed into my head and down my soul’s core. Yeah, I still loved her. No matter how long it had been since I last saw her or talked to her i still loved her. We have had shared the vows to live a life together. And I have dreamed of a family with her. The connection we developed over 5 years of relation and the moment we shared was so precious to me. I promised her to never let go. Never thought it would come crashing the other way around. When she left, she left so many questions unanswered. She didn’t think that i was worthy enough to get closure. She didn’t care how much I would suffer. And I still couldn’t change how I feel for her.
It was insane that I still loved her. I had answers to his every “why?”s. But he didn’t need to know that. So, I explained to him humbly that i don’t have any pictures of her; those were paintings. And if its hurting them, i would take down all of them. He replied with a sarcastic compliment to my artistic skills and asked me to take them out asap. The only thing that didn’t sink in well was that he referred to her as his present and future. I wanted to reply “what about the past?” I was the past; just a past. We were passed. What we did, whatever we felt, whatever we shared, all that love and care, all that sacrifice and devotion was now a long paragraph of past participles. I did those sketches to heal myself from the extreme pain and anger I felt after her departure. It helped me fight the loneliness was in. Or maybe that was my excuse to avoid the painful reality and keep on living the lie.
Whatever that was, it was my escape door. I used to feel calm and relaxed doing it; trying to recreate our memorable moments. But now I need to take them down. I did not own rights to them anymore. She had someone else in her life. I needed to acknowledge that she has a life “without me” too. So I did it. I just thought she herself could have asked me to take them down. His new boyfriend needing to come for “her rescue” pinched me badly. I texted him after I took them down. Since she was his present and future I understood I no longer own any right to express my longingness to those memories anymore. She was my past and would have been my eternity if it would not have been the envious fate. But I didn’t want trouble for her. So I deleted everything I created of us. our story that’s engraved in the wall of the past; I treasure those memories and no one could make me erase that. Not even him. Not even her. I will take everything we had to the grave.
# 1316DaysAnd9748KMLater
Male 27
Sydney
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