Just a Goodbye

We look for signs as evidence to prove our intuitions. 

But we often miss the signs that prove us wrong. 

This could become an obsession. 

Obsession could take a life.

He was gone. Gone forever.

I stared at his lifeless body, hoping for a different outcome. All my eyes needed was a blink. But my brain denied sending any signals. It was busy handling my heart. 

To give my eyes the much-needed break, I shifted my sight to the hall. The hall was surrounded by his friends, filled with wails, saturated with condolence messages. The sight of his friends wailing could have made me cry if only my ears could hear the same. It was busy hearing his words. 

I will never leave you, he was saying. 

His words repeated like a song’s refrain. They became overwhelming and started dropping off my ears. Afraid it would hurt the others in the hall, I tried catching them. But like him, his words moved far away from me. They went at a speed that I couldn’t follow. Finally, I tripped. They won, I lost.

Some of his friends helped me. They held me and grabbed me outside like I was an insane person disturbing their friend’s funeral. 

Though he left me, I was not ready to leave his lifeless body. It was the final of what I have of him. But I couldn’t resist when they grabbed me out of the hall as I was worried they would consider me insane. 

I was made to sit on the bench placed in the corridor. 

Melina, his so-called friend, sat near me and started consoling me, or what she thought she did. She said she was sorry for my loss. 

But why was she sorry? 

It was him who needs to be sorry. He needs to apologize, not for leaving me, but for leaving without a goodbye.

Melina suggested to cry out loud and let my grief out. But why?

I was not sad. Was I?

Yes, my eyes were red. But grief was not the culprit. Neither tears. It was anger. My eyes were fuming red with intense desperation for revenge.

I wanted to make him wait for an apology despite knowing that this wait can never end. I wanted to make him mad.

If leaving was the only option, he could have at least given a sign, a hint, a goodbye. But he left me without any notice. 

Melina said that she couldn’t express her grief and no one expected this would happen.

But I know this would happen one day. 

This was what I feared from the day he proposed his love to me. 

I remember I rejected his proposal as I know he will leave me one day. He did everything he could do to convince me. His gesture was sweet, sweeter than the best sweet I have ever tasted in my life. He promised me that he’ll never leave me. My mind forced me to accept, but my heart stood in the opposite direction. Finally, my mind won.

Love was the hardest chapter in my life. When accepting his love was so harder for me, reciprocating his feelings became out of the context. At some point, his love strangled me. When I expressed my struggle, he gave me space, and that strangled me even harder. In the daytime, his love strangled me, and at night, the fear that he’ll leave me one day strangled my soul. It was a complete mess. I thought he was understanding my struggle.

I waited for him to give a sign, a goodbye, just a goodbye. 

But he denied giving me what I needed. He tried harder to enter my life. He was ready to face any challenge. First, it was my mind. Now, it was my heart.

If winning my heart was a challenge, he would have won it in no time. But it was a war. A deadly war. A war where thorns could help you while petals could prick you. But like a prince from fantasy, he won the war with ease and I have to accept my defeat.

As per the sequence, I fell in love with him. I tried harder and even reciprocated his feelings. But I know it was a mere reflection. The one we get from a mirror.

But, he said it was our happy days. I loved him and felt my soul attached to him. He started becoming more than me in me. Days became as beautiful as they can be, but nights? 

Nights were horror. Ultimate horror. 

The fear of losing him didn’t let me sleep and when I surpass the fear and sleep, it was nightmares, the worst nightmares. Happy days with sleepless nights was a bad combo and I started growing weak. 

Soon it came to his notice and with a lot of compulsion, he took me to a doctor. I was prescribed sleeping pills and he took the duty of handing it one daily. He was worried that a bottle of pills in my hand could be a danger. His worry offended me.

From there the matter got worse. He started taking care of me like I was an insane person. Now he got reasons to leave me. He could easily blame that I was an insane person.

I was waiting for a sign from him. Just a goodbye. But he was not ready to end my wait. 

The matters went worse when Melina entered his life. He introduced her as his long-lost school friend. She looked pretty and she was normal. She was not different like I am. She could sleep at night without the help of sleeping pills. I don’t think any form of love could strangle her. She had family and friends unlike me. 

He had all reasons to choose her over me. And I had all reasons to question him.

He didn’t but I did. 

When I did what he couldn’t, all I wanted was just a yes. Or at least a sign, a nod. But he didn’t.

He denied my accusations and blamed me that I was insecure. 

Instead of blaming me, only if he had the courage to accept the truth this would have not happened. I would have not been mad at him.

He introduced me to his family as he thought that it would handle my insecurity and solve the problem. But little did he know, I was expecting something else. For sure he loved me, but he never understood me.

His solution created another problem. His family was not happy with me. They thought I was different and they were not ready to accept me.

It was not my mistake that I am different. It was not my mistake that I do not have a family. It was not my mistake that I couldn’t handle love. It was not my mistake that his family rejected him. 

But I know one day, he will hold me responsible and he will leave me just to please his family. 

I questioned him again and he denied it as usual. He blamed me that I have developed an obsession. But I couldn’t find any way to explain that it was my fear, not an obsession. Though I had all reasons to validate my fear I lacked words.

My love for him reached the state that I started enjoying the pain given by the fear. Wanting it more I skipped the sleeping pills. I hid the pills so that he doesn’t get any doubts.

Again it was sleepless nights. But I enjoyed it. 

The final horror was when I caught him red-handed. He was packing his suitcases and I know what it meant. This could be the end of my fear. I swear I have no idea of forcing him to stay with me. All I wanted was a goodbye. A goodbye before he leaves me.

But to my dismay he denied. He argued with me that the packing was for a small trip. How did he think I will believe his lie. If it was a trip why didn’t he inform me?

We argued and the confrontation went to its peak.

You have become insane, he was saying. 

…

He said I was insane. How could he?

…

I didn’t mean it, he was saying. But he meant it. For whatever reason in the world, he apologized to me. 

All I needed was to be alone. But he never understood me. He pleaded to accept his apology. Unable to handle his plea, I nodded and he thought I accepted the apology.

But who needs his apology?

I was planning to prove that I am good. I have to prove that my mental health is completely fine, for that, I have to prove my fear was right. In fact, I wished to prove I am smarter than him.

I proposed that I’ll prepare dinner. He obliged as usual. Then it was easy. Five pills to his food. It was the best coincidence that I had the hidden pill with me. The doctor prescribed it to help me heal but it actually helped me to prove that the doctor was wrong. 

After dinner, he went to sleep. Forever.

Everyone thought it was a natural death. Some think it’s a stroke, some think it’s a heart attack. But only I know he is just sleeping.

Now it’s proved that I am not insane. I am just smarter than the others.

If he was alive, he would have blamed me that I killed him. 

But I know I didn’t kill him. I just gave him sleeping pills to rest. It was my turn of taking care of him. It was the love that killed him. It was the same love that he used to give me. He ignored my wait and it ignored him.

All my life, I have waited for his sign, a sign as little as a goodbye. But he went without minding to say goodbye. Now I am sitting here with ultimate desperation for revenge. 

But I know I couldn’t take any revenge as I am not insane.