Things left unsaid.

She had once told him while they were on the phone, "I don't care if you go on and sleep with random women. Have mindless sex with them. I just don't care because I know how it gets... I am so far away and there is nothing I can do about it. But I cannot stand it if another woman occupies your heart, if your love for her is stronger than what you have for me, I will lose all purpose of life. I won't know where I'd go, what I'd so, what I'd be."

He listened, reassuring her that she was the love of his love. He told her how he could never stop thinking about her eyes that had the depth of a thousand seas. He told her how he loved her hair, especially when she let it flow freely. He told her how he wanted to marry her and none but her because she was everything in his otherwise troublesome life. He told her that he knows that she doesn't much care for children but that he'd want her to be the mother of his child if he ever did have one. He told her about how his love for her was unrequited and how he lived every second to just make the one moment of their rendezvous everything that she had hoped for. He told her that he lives to see her one day, to be able to place his hands on her shoulders, gaze into her eyes and tell her how much he loved her.

She listened, feeling reassured. Hoping that he loved her as much as he said he did because she knew that even when he said all this, she was not the person in his head. He was speaking to a lover. But he wasn't speaking to her. He was saying all the right things but they weren't directed at her.

Then one day she asked him, "You still love her don't you?"

He did her the favour of being honest. He said that he did and that she knew he did. He had told her before that he'd never be able to forget her.

"Yes, I know", she pressed, "But you would you go back to her if she called you back? Would you give me up?"

He sighed and told her that he couldn't lie. He told her how they were together for five years. How they sat next to each other at work and looked at each other all the time. He told her how they were inseparable. He told her how she had been a huge part of his life and how she took a portion of his heart all for herself. He told her she was his companion and he was hers.

She understood completely, swallowed the pain that filled her up. Her senses, her body, her mind, her brain, her soul. She was a bundle of pain. Suffering. She was loveless. She was a lot of things but she wasn't non-understanding. So she told him she understood. She told him that she thought it was wonderful that he could love someone like that. She told him that it only made him more admirable in her eyes. She wasn't lying. She meant every word she said. But she left some things unsaid.

She didn't tell him that the rest of her life she could only pretend to be happy. She didn't tell him that she craved for someone's love. She didn't tell him that she wanted someone to love her as he loved his ex. She didn't tell him that she was devastated. She didn't tell him that she wanted to cry. Because for the first time, she felt bad for herself.

Then one day, she left. She didn't say where, she didn't leave a note, she didn't give him a reason. She just disappeared like she was never there. She left no traces of her presence. Nothing for him to remember her by. Nothing to remind him of her.

Ten days later, her brother called him to tell him that he could come to the funeral if he'd like. She suffered from a vague illness for which the doctors couldn't determine the cause. That was just another thing she didn't tell him.