Love Before Graduation-Chapter 23 -::Unspoken Confessions

As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt a slight chill in the air.

There was the same old cold inside the house - like every day.

Papa was sitting on the table, with the newspaper in his hand, but his eyes were fixed on the tiffin - as if the time of the tiffin was more important to him than every word of the newspaper.Brothers and sisters were running here and there, and from downstairs, Mummy's voice echoed,

"Get up, it will be late!"

I looked at the ceiling with sleepy eyes.

There are some mornings... which never change.

But today was something different.

The moments of last night were still standing frozen at the threshold of my thoughts.

Why did I say all that?

Why?

Maybe sometimes to save the heart, it has to be broken...

The day slipped away like a hazy dream.

When we reached school, the assembly hall was already filled with the light humming of children. Namie was standing on my right, Suhina behind.

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"What happened to you?"

Nami asked in a whisper. There was that strange tenderness in her voice which only close friends have.

"I will tell you in class," I said avoiding her eyes.

But what kind of Nami is she who agrees so easily?

"At least tell me if you are okay?"

I just nodded slightly.

Okay...

The word okay was so easy to say, but so difficult to feel.

Just then Suhina's voice came from behind,

"Why are your eyes so swollen?"

Suhina and worry?

Sometimes even the world moves backwards.

"Couldn't sleep..."

The words slipped from my lips, as if I didn't believe myself.

The prayer started.

The same daily rhythmic noise, the same familiar voices...

But my mind was somewhere else -

Where the doors of my heart were still stuck on that last meeting of the night.

As soon as I reached the classroom, I took my favourite seat as usual – the one next to the window.

Nami also came and sat next to me.

As the bell rang, she leaned towards me – there was a restlessness in her movement, as if she had to say something important.

"Tell me now," her voice had the last shred of patience.

I took a deep breath.

"Yesterday evening..."

The words seemed to get stuck in my throat.

"What about yesterday evening?" Nami's eyes narrowed.

I lowered my gaze. "I met Rei."

She was startled. "Rei? Then?"

I rubbed my fingers on the desk, as if trying to erase some unspoken emotion.

"He asked the same thing again, Nami. He wanted to know... do I love him."

For a moment, a ray of hope appeared on Nami's face, then it slipped away and disappeared somewhere.

She said in a light whisper, "Did you really say that which is stopping my breathing?"

As if the burden of the words had reached her heart - and she was standing just a step away from breaking it.

Her voice was so light, as if she was holding her breath while saying each word.

I closed my eyes tightly – as if I wanted to stop the tears that had filled my eyes by dropping the curtains of my eyelids.

"I had spoken to her very strictly..."

The words fell, and with each word I started feeling more burden of my heart.

Nami did not say anything. Her silence made my crime even bigger.

"What did you say?" she asked in a whisper, as if she was afraid that the answer would break her too.

Should I even tell her? What if she thinks I'm being stupid? What if she agrees with Rei?

I gathered the pieces of my broken heart, and said in scattered words,

"A person always wants what he does not have... and does not appreciate what he has. I too am a victim of the same nature. You are mine but not mine, and I am yours but not yours."

Silence...

A very heavy silence.

Such that if someone wanted to listen, they could even hear the sound of a broken heart.

Nami just kept looking at me. Her eyes had everything that words could not express—pity, sorrow, and perhaps, an attempt to understand me.

There was an incomplete silence between us...

Like an incomplete prayer, which dies on the way before reaching God.