The anger builds up to the exploding point in me. Why the hell am I so weak?

"I thought about you while scrolling down here. So thought to message you."

Wait a second. He thought about me? What am I supposed to make of that? He too thinks about me like I think about him? That’s well unexpected.

But then we’re humans. Obviously my face will cross his thoughts, even if his subconscious. That’s quite natural. And he apologized. That’s something.

But was I ready to forgive and forget? Not yet. He’s typing still.

"That’s all… Stuff???"

Holy shit!

He wants to know what stuff my friends say about him. Well they make up weird nicknames for him. Tell me how all the people belonging to his place are ethno centric and how they eat unpalatable food and lots and lots of stuff.

I’d be damned to hell if I tell all these to him.

Instead I try to appeal on the emotional side.

"My friends told me that they'd kill me if they saw me talking to you.

I saw the difference in your attitude when you’re with your friends and you’re with me. You don’t consider me as a friend. Well who am I to compare myself with them?"

Blah blah…

I continued typing furiously, knowing very well that I was saying stuff I shouldn’t. But then it was as if I was in a trance. Something had taken possession of my body.

" Fine, I won’t message you henceforth. You talk to me only if you want to and when your #instincts tell you to."

I finished typing with a sigh!

I closed my eyes as I pressed send. I had a gut feeling that this was going wrong, too wrong.

Maybe after all this time, this fight would cleave us apart. We had minor tiffs, but each of them made me fall in love with him over and over again. I have this weakness that I can’t stay angry on someone for long.

He wasn’t online so I closed my app.

That’s just an excuse. I was dreading his reply. I felt stifled, strangled. Someone was pressing down on my throat. I looked at the people around me. No one was even casting a glance at me. ‘
That’s a good sign. It means, my mental war has been a silent one so far.

My phone pinged, making me almost jump out of my skin.

"Hay, don’t go that far. I always told you to keep your distance. People aren’t what you expect them to be. People change. And I’m a bit irritated as I have cold and rhinitis."

I mentally rolled my eyes again. You being miserable doesn’t give you the right to make other’s life miserable, does it?

But the second sentence is what caught my eye.

" I ALWAYS TOLD YOU TO KEEP YOUR DISTANCE."

That he did.

My mind travelled back in time. It was like the old films and the reel is rolling backward. It was another Saturday morning.

I am in between classes. I casually pick out my phone and hiding it under the desk, text him.

“Hey, can I talk to you? Have a minute to spare?”

“Sure, tell…”

That was a good time. Unlike now when the reply comes, ‘Lil busy, bro. talk to you later.’

That day, I actually had something to talk to him about. A few of my classmates commented about us to him in their native language. He just smiled and said something too. And I didn’t understand a word of the whole exchange. I felt betrayed. And I wanted him to tell me what they were telling. But he brushed me off with something like…

"They were teasing me like they normally do. Nothing bad or derogatory. I don’t mind."

But I do mind, don’t I?

I got angry and told him to stop playing with my emotions.

Work done, I closed my phone and dropped it in my bag.