I have always wondered what it would be like to hold his heart in my hand. To have those guarded eyes look at me with tender love. To have him hold me gently, as though I am his precious treasure. To stir his unemotional heart into feeling something more for me.

He wasn’t easy to love, but there was just something about the way he looked at me that made all the jumbled words and incoherent thoughts make sense. Something about the way he talked to me that had me transfixed and bound to him. Something about him that made my entire existence yield to him, as though I couldn’t stand on my own and he was my only strong pillar in this erratic, ever-changing world. Something dark and irresistible about him that made me go to unfathomable extents for him, to reach the stars just for the chance to make him happy.

I wanted so much for him to feel a shred of something for me. I wanted more than anything to be the reason he smiled. I just wanted him to love me back.

And I tried. I tried to see the good side of him. I tried to give him everything I had, until I made him my life.

I tried to love him at the expense of me. But it didn’t matter what I did. He was never close enough.

I interlaced our fingers together, feeling the warmth and tightness around them. I threw my other arm around his neck, clinging onto him, and brushed my lips against his.

But still, he would never be close.

I looked into his unreadable eyes and felt the stiffness of his back, and suddenly I was filled with this need for him to feel something. I pulled his head down to mine and leaned forward until I was kissing him. I could feel his warmth and all-consuming presence. I felt myself slipping away and I was confused and hurt. He continued to stay immobile and unaffected.

He continued to stay out of reach and he did not kiss me back.

Whenever I took two steps towards him, he would take ten steps back. Whenever I thought we had a connection and I was closer to seeing the person behind his composed façade, he would become a stranger the next day and I was no closer to his heart. Whenever I thought he was starting to fall for me and there was a possibility of us, he would become withdrawn and dashed my hopes.

It was many years later I realized his distance had been deliberate, and his lack of concern was unintentional.

It was when I saw him with her that I realized it was not because he was incapable of love, but simply because he just could not love me.

Where he used to hide any association with me, he now publishes pictures of him and her all over his social media. I saw him attending her graduation and looking so proud of her. I saw him holding her hand with her group of friends. I saw how he went on vacation with her, glowing with happiness.
I saw how he did everything I wanted him to do with me, with her. I saw the forever I wanted with him materializing in this current reality with her. I saw how she had all his love, the love I could only dream about.

When you fall for someone who doesn’t feel the same way, your self-esteem is crushed. You can only wonder, why her and why not me? You are heartbroken and it is a wound that never completely heals.

However, you also learn to move on from that. The heartbreak, although painful, is necessary for you to accept what happened and give up trying to convince someone to love you the way you deserve.

Only by moving on from this unrequited love, you can eventually meet the one who feels the same way towards you.