Love Lost

It was a love lost.

He’d always wondered about their past. She had loved him once, he knew, but it had been the first blushes of love, and the timing had not been right for either of them.

She had come to him, he remembered, to quell the rumours whispered of her feelings, and she had told him straight out about the way she felt. She had felt affronted that her feelings were fodder from the rumour mill. He had been amused, for despite his many encounters of the female kind, none had been as forthcoming as she was, and he admired her for it. It was even more amusing that she blatantly told him that she was not looking for a relationship, but at the same time, that she had feelings for him and those feelings were beyond her control.

Loved and rejected at the same time.

They had kept in touch and everytime they met she was as affectionate and friendly as ever. She always made him smile, and she always maintained he was far too serious for his own good and personally took it unto himself to make him smile a little more. He thought about her in passing, but she was always the one who would call and text and keep in touch.

They did not talk much or often and there were extended periods of silence, but for some unknown reason he was her confidante, despite all that. She had called him in tears after her first car accident. He was the first person she had told about her first boyfriend, and the first person she had called when they broke up. He always smiled when he saw her name flash up on his phone, followed by the customary, “Guess what?”

He noticed when she changed. Life had hardened her ever so slightly, but she was still the beautiful, wonderful girl he met before. She grew from a affectionate, awkward girl to an unconventionally beautiful woman, but she was more reserved, more guarded now. He wondered why and wondered if she had come to a phase of her life where she no longer needed him to confide in, to help through her problems.

She was happily married now, and they remained good friends.

That special bond of friendship where time did not seem to be a factor, and despite the long times of non contact, he would inevitably see her name flash on his phone once again and pick up to her customary “Guess what?” And they would chat like old friends and he would smile.

And every once in awhile she would cross his mind, and he wondered, what would have changed that fateful day in the corridor when that self-critical, laughing girl had stood in front of him had told him about her feelings, how it would all have been different if he too had the courage to say before, “Me too.”