Four years and a new tc later
Previously, I went by lo-i-beheld. He was M, early 40s or something. I haven’t seen him in 3 years, only think of him sporadically these days. Now, there’s P, though I’m writing this some two years too late as I’m on my way out of this institution. She’s two years over twice my age and short enough for tippy-toed kisses.
It was at the start-of-term welcome session that I first saw her, and that was the first day of an infatuation that would be unlike anything I’ve felt before. For each day of the past two years, she’s been my first thought and my last. She is everything.
She wasn’t one of my teachers, so I didn’t see her that much. I counted the days to each upcoming encounter, wrote pages and pages about her in my diary to tide me over in the meantime. The slightest unexpected glimpse of her could leave me bedbound for days.
I long to know her soul. Information was never so precious as when she chose to share pieces of herself with me. Every small thing I got to know about her felt forbidden, even though it came from her own lips, because she never knew how it really was. She never knew just how I would cherish that anecdote about her adolescence, turning it over and over in my mind. Had she known, she might have kept it from me.
We haven’t spoken much, but she knows me. I’m hard to forget after that one awful thing we both wish we’d never shared. I don’t know what she thinks of me, not really, but I know she notices me. She looks for me and registers my presence, sometimes with a smile. It’s so hard not to hope. She’s warm and kind, and though she’ll never cover up how hard it is to succeed in our field, she encourages me to keep going. I will. Without her, because of her.
Now, I’m not delusional. I know that none of this is healthy. I know I should turn my mind to other things, but Reader, I’ve never felt anything so sweet. I’ve never loved like this and I’ve never hurt like this. I’m not ready to give up feeling like this when it seems as if all that will be left is emptiness.
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