One time, when I was super drunk and staring at the spinning ceiling of my dorm room, a strange thought came into my head. While thinking about him and the inevitability of his departure â mixed with the despair of feeling too much when time wasnât enough â my mind needed a way to make myself believe that it was all real. That I didnât somehow make it up. That when heâs back home, sitting on that damned flight, itâs not like he never existed. Itâs a matter of heart more than it is a matter of the brain, Iâm completely aware â but for some reason, that night, I needed a way to prove to myself that what we had was factual. That it wasnât just my brain playing tricks on me. I wonât be foolish to think back to it in a way that matters, because it did matter â and how do I know?
Well, the only thing my mind took as proof in that moment werenât the clothes he left behind â not the light brown sweatpants and a white T-shirt that smelled like him so much I slept in it for two nights straight â or the pictures and videos of our drunken endeavors in my gallery. It also wasnât the tales Iâd tell or the diary pages soaked in the pain of my existence for the last few months. No. What my mind decided to take as proof of our closeness, our ârelationshipâ â even though it wasnât ever truly defined, how he said himself a whole year later, randomly wandering into our Whatsapp chat to catch up on life after the pains long disappeared â it was the simple fact that we spent all 24 hours of the day together.Â
Itâs a funny concept, I get it. A silly one. I told my friend about it once, and she didnât really understand â and I canât blame her. Itâs a strange thing to think about, one you can only ever really come up with when your system is running on last drops of vodka mixed with iced tea you had that night. But itâs fairly simple, really. We spent each and every hour of the day together. And I donât mean at one time â just minutes and hours scattered across the 24 hours on different days, our bodies in each otherâs presence.
Me and him usually spent the time frame between 4 pm to midnight, sometimes even 2 am (depending on my schedule next day and whether I had to wake up for my 8 am class) together. It was our usual time. We would meet at his dorm room and watch a movie before we would slowly fall into each other, our bodies finding comfort in each otherâs touch.Â
The only night we spent together was on our trip to Bratislava. It left me feeling bitter, unwanted and rejected â for it was the night I wanted his body more than he wanted mine â and even though I still find it hard to move on from it, at least it added to the 24-hour time span. It was proof.
We didnât leave the capital until 1 pm that time. The missing hours were added on the day he had to fly back home. We never did much, but at least we were together. It was real â our connection. We werenât meeting just in after hours. I meant more to him than the timeframe between 4 pm to midnight.
I hadnât thought of this concept for a long time. It only appeared in my mind again a whole year later â a stupid coincidence, another pisces man I let play with my heart. But this time, the realization shattered me.
No 24 hours. Not even a full 12. We spent many evenings together, spilling secrets to each other on abandoned playgrounds and behind roaring clubs, but the timeframe was always the same. Nine pm to 2 am. Five hours of the 24 we have in the day.
I never saw him in the daylight. We never went to each otherâs dorm room, never cuddled on the coach. We never went to Bratislava. We didnât take the train together. We never took that damned polaroid. Thereâs no proof of me ever being in his life â other than the blurry selfies in my phone. For all I know, in his life, itâs almost like I never even existed.
I have no proof of our closeness. No factual information I could point my finger at. He never introduced me to his friends. He never even asked me out. And you know what that means?
Perhaps, it never really happened. It never really mattered, and
I made it all up.
