I don't know why, but I felt my world dropping around me the moment I'd closed the browser window. I felt my heart sink low as I logged off my computer and headed for the lab exit. I try to disguise the emptiness I was feeling, so I took a piss out of my friend over his much-maligned lack of punctuality. I sprouted the line with solid, perfected, comedic timing, punctuating it with a wry smile. It didn't work, and my feelings continued to freefall.
You see, timing was always a trait of mine that I was rather proud of, I always had a knack of timing things well - although often a more rational individual would put it down to luck more than anything else. But when I think about you and what could have been, I guess my timing failed me when it really mattered.
To be honest, I did consider you a potential companion, someone I would enjoy spending time with. I'd always imagined that everything we would have done would be fun, that I wouldn't be bored of you, even for years perhaps. But that's all I did: consider you one. As with most girls whose paths had intertwined with mine, I'd often consider them a viable choice, but do little and let the fleeting chance pass me by.
I don't know if you were there for the taking, but I still remember fondly the times just after we first met. We had those teenager-style prank missed calls that we'd done for weeks, those mock insulting sessions which bordered on flirtatious interchanges, so much so I felt like I was young again. I felt I could let all the career ratrace shithole life slide by me, and I would be happy with you. But hey, I felt that way before too, so I had gathered that what I'd felt for you was nothing more than infatuation, which wasn't at all uniquely toward you. This then bizzarely, launched me into theorizing that infatuation is but a figment of our minds. I can't remember exactly what bullshit I'd conjured, but hey, basically it made sense at the time.
You certainly weren't special to me, but I guess you are the more I think about it. Your smile really does seem like sunshine, and many have confided in me that it is your main attraction. I am inclined to agree, except that as time went by I found more and more things about you that were amazing in their own entirety.
We weren't close on a personal level, and we hadn't even talked about deep stuff like religion, which incidentally, is what I sometimes use as an indicator to how close a friend someone is. Quite simply, if you can talk openly about religious issues, you're pretty close as friends. So point was, I wasn't close to you. But we still did things people would normally associate with being close friends. Remembering each others' birthdays, sending cards, etc. I'd like to think that you remember my birthday and have it deeply emblazened in your rather photographic memory. I know I have yours.
If we hadn't been close, if I hadn't thought you to be special, how come I audibly gawk at the sight of your update profile. The pictures with your new-found boyfriend. How incredible you look in the gown, with that hair. Could it be that I deeply felt we had a chance, or that I had been holding out for an opportunity to try things out at a later time?
Perhaps I thought, maybe you had feelings for me, because you certainly did indicate as such at one point, so we would wait it out and see where the currents take us. You however, are pretty sure I treat you as a friend. I hadn't even bothered to check on how you were doing in university. You must be pretty sure. Because even I was pretty sure I did.
I guess I always considered you an angel of some sort. The embodiment of innocence. Not because I was madly into you, but rather because you did rather resemble one, with your soft demeanor and cheery outlook on life.
In the back of my mind I must have thought of you as something I may want to fall back on if I'd failed to find an angel of my own, when in fact you weren't the safety net. You were the angel. The angel that got away.
