The Universe's Red String

I saw her this morning. She still has this bubble in her eyes whenever she speaks about things she’s passionate with. But I never really tried to talk to her yet. I remained on the sideline and let others gets her attention. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the chance. And while thinking about how I first met her a smile on my face resurfaces as if it was only yesterday. I still get the butterflies just thinking about it.

I was still on my second year in my first company after I graduated from college. It was an auditing firm and anyone who’s in this industry knows exactly how it can be depleting and boring at the same time. I almost wanted a way out and thinking I must look for another job but then she enters the picture and without even noticing, the thought of quitting my job silently slipped from my mind. And just like me it was her first ever job right after college. I never really noticed her at first since I’m the kind of person who can be wrapped up in his own little world until one day she sat next to my table and she started talking to me or is it the other way around. I don’t quite remember well how we started talking but I vividly remember those sparks in her eyes the moment she made her point to me when we were discussing ways of propagating some plants. So yes, there we were. We weren’t only interested in numbers but plants as well. And from then onwards I started seeing her more often. I noticed how she instantly shifted to being quiet and reserved whenever she’s surrounded by others she’s not closed with. How she drummed her fingers on her table and mouthed the lyrics of a song she’s listening to in high volume with her earphones while being focused on her work. How she giggled and her pitched changed when she was excited. How she supported and helped other's works without expecting anything in return. How she subtly defended someone she’s not even closed to when somebody’s badmouthing them behind their backs. And how she shut her mouth and stared silently into their eyes without trying to hide her displeasure if they hurt her feelings. Then before I realised it I then became anxious and frightened at the thought that I already had feelings for her. And before I could even confirm how I felt for her and confessed to her I had to fly to another country as life demanded me to. So I left her without telling her anything but I hoped that the moments we were together would remain in her heart and that one day I would be able to tell her how I feel.

And after a few years away from her one thing was for sure. She never left my mind. I still saw her and knew some things in her life through social media. And there wasn’t a week that passed by without me checking her account. Her smile never changed through the years. Her eyes gleamed like a lamppost on the street at night. It gave life and warmth to the quiet cold nights. But then I got submerged into the tedious work I had and the days passed by and years went through like a wind and I never had news about her anymore. Her social media turned quiet. And so, did my thoughts about her.

But then I decided to go back in my country and it was then when the universe played a joke on me. I was fixing my table on my new found job when I caught a glimpse on a familiar face. I felt my heart almost skipped a beat and thought I had forgotten how to breathe. I waited there for almost a thousand years, patiently watching inside my office for the same person to pass by again. I wasn’t able to stand and follow that person and confirm whether it’s her instead I was sitting there like an idiot waiting for a bomb to explode. And then there she goes with the same stride that she does whenever her head was up in space and her hair as black as the dark. And still dumbfounded with the thought of this coincidence I remained at bay confirming it was really her. I asked some colleagues about her and that’s when I knew, the universe creates magic.

And today I mustered all the courage I had to walk towards her and finally try to patch things between us. It was lunch and she was sitting there with her new found friends I think as they were not familiar to me and her eyes finally meets mine. I felt all the nerve in my body turned numb but that glow in her eyes when she smiled made all the memories I had with her sprouted one by one and her laugh reverberated on my mind. The universe stopped and I thought I also stopped breathing.

“Hi!” I said in an almost whisper yet filled with emotion that was enough to reach her.

“Hi,” she said and then serenely smiled without taking her eyes off from me.

“How are you? It’s been too long since we last talked.”

I saw a flash of hesitation passed from her eyes. That’s one of the things I really liked about her. How transparent those eyes and how she never tried to hide it. “Yeah... How long has it been?”

I simply couldn’t contained how I felt about her at that moment. It was as if all the feelings I had for her were freed and without even thinking about it I started to talk... sincerely.

“Been years... but it seems to me like it was only yesterday.” I could hear how shaky my voice and yet I continued without being disrupted. It was as if I lived for thousand years for only this moment to happen and I wouldn’t stop anymore. I poured my heart out. “I don’t know how it will sound to you... but I really want to tell you something. I know it’s been years and we never had the chance to catch up but...” I looked at her and see how her eyes patiently waited for me to finish as if she also wanted to hear what I was about to say. “But you, you never left my mind. I know. I know it’s weird that after all those years I am only confessing my feelings to you and didn’t even tried to tell you even after I left and realised, I really do like you. And I still do. And I hope that this will not freak you out or what but please. Just please. Give me that chance to prove how much I like you even if we’re only seeing now again after how many years. My feelings for you never disappeared. At all.”

I breathed.

Then a sad smile formed on her eyes. And with a heavy heart I embraced the truth of those wasted years.

“Thank you,” she said in an almost teary-eyes. “The sincerity of your feelings reached me and it made me happy and overwhelmed... but it pains me that the memories you had with me is no longer a part of me. And I don’t remember anything about it anymore. I wish I could so that I would be able to response to you in an honest way just like how you did just now. But I can’t. I can’t anymore.”

And it was then that I learned that she had a car accident with her family on their vacation last year and she lost her father and she was in coma for almost a month and when she woke up, she had lost all of her memories even the only memories she had with her father.

Tears flowed on her eyes and my world crumbled.

Yes, the universe played a joke on me. And it wasn’t magic but a heart-wrenching prank.