Not Saying Things

They were just sitting there, with their feet dug in the sand.

They could have been together, or they could have been strangers. 

They could have been strangers who were together, or they could have been together and still strangers. 

Just sitting there, each of them lost in a sea of thoughts almost as deep as the sea they were looking at.

She looked at him and wondered what was running through his mind. He was always thinking about something important, or so she thought. 

It was difficult to decide whether he thought about important things, or whether things were important only if he thought about them. When it came to him, her thoughts were always too many to sort out. 

You know when you are sharing a long silence with someone, and even though you can think of all these things to say and break the silence, you’re not really sure if you should say them? 

“Sometimes I can’t remember why I love you. It’s usually so much easier to find reasons not to.”

You would do anything to anyone if you felt like it, no matter how mean. You can be unfaithful without really feeling guilty. The ease with which you lie is as alarming as it is disturbing. You are the centre of your world, and sometimes it seems as if you don’t need anyone else. 

You refuse to be with me and have even laughed to my face at the idea of ever being with me. You don’t love me, and you don’t even care enough to lie about it. You hurt my feelings all the time. Sometimes, deliberately, just to see if I’d put up with it. And I always do.

Somewhere between all of this, I love you. 

With more dedication than I have probably had for anything. 

And from the midst of all of this, I still see why. 

It’s because you blow life into me every time you look at me. With you, I’m real. 

You don’t infuse in me hope for a better tomorrow, or of one day breaking free from these mundane walls and chains and building a haven for myself. 

You don’t show me dreams of running away to a better place. You make me feel like I’ve arrived. 
So while you sit here, thinking about ways to catch hold of that happiness that seems to forever elude you, I look at you, and find exactly what you are searching for.

She smiled, and turned back to look at the sun sinking slowly into the Arabian waters. They had not shared such a long silence since one afternoon the previous year. He had told her that he was leaving her that day. 

She knew that she would probably never get around to saying any of these things to him. So she said the next best thing, “Gola?”