The Words I Never Said.

It was a warm evening, the kind that makes you feel like the world is restless, like there’s something stirring in the thick of the air but you’re not sure what it is. I remember her sitting across from me, her eyes shining in the soft lamps that lit up the café. There was something about her expression that night, as if she were looking for something—maybe a truth she’d been waiting to hear for too long.

I had loved her for so many years. She wasn’t just someone I adored from a distance; she was my closest friend, my safe harbor and my daydream of all things pure and wonderful in this life. But sometimes life stitches its intentions into your lips and when it comes time to speak up, you don’t dare open your mouth at all. I had practised what I would say a thousand times before then but now that we were here—the both of us nearly nose-to-nose—I felt my resolve crumble to ruins of chalk against rain.
We spoke about everything, we spoke about nothing. We discussed work, we discussed the books she was reading, we bickered at the idiosyncrasies of life that amused us. It was all there but between each line I could feel that tension hanging in abeyance. I wanted to tell her what she meant to me- how her smile somehow had the strength to convert my worst days to bearable ones; how with her I envisaged a tomorrow that no one else could ever substitute.
But I didn’t.
As the evening came to an end, she looked at me and said…