LOVE AND REGRET...

That first moment our eyes met, I fell in love with you. Love, nothing less, despite knowing that you felt nothing. That you would feel nothing ever.

I talked to you, wrote to you, and every time you replied I’d feel my heartstrings tug. We talked on and on, about things of all manners. I knew you like you knew yourself, what you feared, what you desired, and what made you cry. You came to know me too, my deepest emotions, save one smothered fact: that I would give up everything to make you mine.

But no, I did not expect anything from you, I was content to love you by myself. Yes it hurt, to see you in the arms of other men, to share those whispers and the knowing smiles that followed. My eyes would burn when I wondered what made them more attractive to you than me, was I not good enough? But I never expected you to love me the same way I did you, even if I desired it. And I never would.

Perhaps I would never be the one you loved, but I would always be that friend. I would be beside you when you needed me, a shadow of solace, an aura of comfort. You would talk to me about things deeper than we did before, about what you felt of yourself, and I would content myself by listening. I was that steadfast rock you held on to through the thrashing tides of all those men you opened your love to. You did not know it, but you had made me a part of every joy and every sorrow in your life, out of habit if nothing else, and I would listen to it all, hurting yes, but loving you evermore.

For years, I was by your side, watching that parade of men walk in, walk out, and ravage everything pure in you. But it was not my place to comment, you claimed you loved them all. And I was committed to being the mute shoulder, the best friend.

I know not what crossed your mind when I asked you to marry me. Perhaps you saw how I had stayed with you through everything, perhaps you were enticed by my own successes. Perhaps you realized that I was the only man you could truly depend on. But you accepted, and that was all that mattered to me at that moment. They that witnessed the ceremonies harped on how we were perfect for each other: it was fitting that two best friends who knew everything about each other and had braved life together should love each other this way.

And today, it is our wedding night, and as I finally embrace you not as a friend, but as a husband, the both of us have more regrets than love for each other. We stay in the embrace, holding one another afraid not of letting go, but of coming closer.

For I realize that I will never be certain of your love for me, I will forever have to fight for your approval, and that it will be impossible for me to transcend from being your shoulder to your husband. And you will hide and smother your biggest regret till it is no larger than a mustard seed, lost except when you cry silently in bed beside me: that you could have someone better, someone you could love as a lover should.