I don’t

It’s been a year and 12 days. I didn’t even notice, until I saw a message from you today morning saying you miss me. It’s been over a year now. I didn’t realise. But then, you don’t value for me anymore.

I remember, how we came together, like a wave softly crashing onto the shore. I was the shore- steady, calm, always there and you were the wave of water-in the form of my favourite color, exciting, always moving. And when we met, I held on to you, and you held on to me.

But soon, you receded, pulled away, strayed far. After that, I saw you and you saw me but we never met again. Water always moves, even under layers, to different places.

I kept count of the dates after that-a week, 10 days, two weeks, a month, two months, three. I heard what my friends told, how I wasn’t the same. How I lost my spark and they were sad to see me that way.

Slowly, I began to not think of you. I smiled genuinely, laughed from my heart and moved on. Even though you were still in front of me almost every day, moving in the same friends circles as I, I began unseeing you. You were there but to me, you weren’t more than one of the strangers in the background.

You moved on, I heard, a few months later. But by then, I refused to care.

And now after more than a year, you try to wade back into my life like a lost soul looking for home where he previously felt warmth. I wasn’t enough then, how will I be enough now.

I spent the whole day, moving around in a haze, remembering everything of the recent past. The memories of us two together which kept running through my head again and again, us laughing, making jokes, sharing our day. Today, I can hardly remember any of those moments.

It’s evening now, I open your message again.

I miss you, it says. It hasn’t changed. Oh, I wish it had.

I let out a huge breath,

I don’t.