I Fell In Love Once Part I

I fell in love with a boy once. I did not remember how it began. All I remember it was sunrise and I was wide awake in front of the computer screen talking with him for hours.

I know him through my mum. He was the son of one of our family friends. When I was seven and he was eleven, he used to babysit me when the adults were having a conversation downstairs. I remember him as a fairly quiet boy. I didn't think we ever talked. He would just turn on the TV and we would watch whatever the daytime program that was aired. Other than that, I did not remember much but I knew I had a crush on him. I held his hand once on a family dinner at this outdoor seafood restaurant in the Central. And I remember he held my hand back.

Little did I know, it was a farewell dinner before his family moved to the Middle East. With that, he sunk to the bottom of my childhood memories. I didn't remember whether or not I noticed his departure. I probably did, and asked my mum where did he go, but I was certain I did not fret nor ever long for his presence soon after he left. I assumed as a child I was too busy minding the colour of my lunchbox and fighting with my baby brother. Perhaps, I would have forgotten him entirely if Mark Zuckerberg had not created Facebook five years ago where I stumbled upon his profile.

It was one simple click that changed the course of our paths that might not need to intersect again. I was seventeen, and he was twenty one. He still lived in the Middle East while I was stuck in the South East. Afterwards, ten years worth of conversation tightly packed in a short messages with the assumption we wanted to fill in the gaps of each other background that were lost and seemed unnecessary when we were children. Short messages turned into long, extensive and intensive conversations. And for the first time in my life, I could feel the connection at heart with someone that was far apart.

Maybe it was because our relationship grew based on the very one thing I treasure the most — words. He was so good with words I could have made it into a book. He crafted most of the sentences like art which weaken my heart, all wrapped with his vulnerability, arrogance and selfishness. We exchanged stories daily along with hopes and dreams, also sometimes faux-promises. We promised to eat Roti Bakar together by the street when he visit home. He also introduced me to films about that giant blue species that speaks Na'vi and conversation-rich American drama set in Vienna, which then became my favourite motion picture. 

Everything developed gradually until we stranded in a conversation when he just got out of a relationship with this girl. I questioned whether or not he was okay, he then replied, "It takes love to kill love, Fiya." There, he had me by the end of the sentence. He was not okay, but he would. Soon. Most of his words were glitters I mistakenly thought as gold, but nonetheless, it felt perfect. We could talk for hours, even days without a tint of boredom. He soon resurfaced from childhood memory to the present.

We would blame the distance, the time difference as if they were the ones responsible with the brutal fact that we were not in the same city and we couldn't be together. I remember he said, if only we met sooner, we might have worked perfectly. I hated this sentence since. The context was useless yet it blossomed the fleeting hope that, we could have been together. And years ago, that could have been for me was more than enough. He won me without notice, and there I fell hypothetically into the idea that if we could have been years ago, maybe, days from then, someday we could be together. 

We did meet eleven years ago but none of us knew yet how to twinkle the words sweetly to sweep one another's feet. Our mutual interest in films had not yet exist to base his imaginary invitation to Pandora as if it was an island that we could visit one day. I suppose, just like our relationship, it was not real, none of us were real, nor build to last. Soon, I became secondary, not that I ever been the priority, but nevertheless what was immediate always win. The intensity of our conversations deteriorate and just like eleven years ago, he disappear. Only this time I long his presence dearly. Sometimes in between empty moments his words would still echo in my head, "I think it's not about how long we have been with someone that counts, it's about how deep we fall for them."

I fell in love with a boy once. I did not remember how it ended. All I remember was it was sunset and he was not there anymore.