Meeting each other could not have been anything other than fate. During my high school years, I transferred to another school. I met her on the first day of the new school year. During my first class, I found her sitting next to me. This is such a cliché to write here, and I feel embarrassed to admit this, but I swear to God that I recognized her from many dreams I had of her years before we met. We were friendly with one another, but I wouldn’t say we became friends.
A few years after graduation, I met her again in my neighborhood. I couldn’t believe it. The thought of her never left my mind. I walked her home, which turned out to be literally a stone’s throw away from where I lived. Before I crossed the street to go home, she pointed at the top corner of the roof where a small completely circular window was. “That is my room,” she said with a smile. For years, I would look in the direction of that circular window, my heart fluttering when the lights were on at night, knowing that the distance between us was finite and less insurmountable than it had seemed before.
And then one summer we encountered each other again in our neighborhood, and she was the brave one, taking the first step by inviting me for a cup of tea. Which turned into dinner, which turned into night sessions hanging out, and talking about this, that, and the other. Which ultimately led me to confess my love for her. As the reader, you may think that these events and many others I shared with her hold a special place in my heart. And they do. Of course they do, I am not a cynic. But I think, after everything that has transpired over the years, I wish we did not meet. I wish I hadn’t transferred schools. I wish I didn’t sit next to her in class. I wish I had said no when she invited me over. I know now that the price I had to pay to get what I wanted was too high. Too damn high.
Khadim Zaman's Blog 