1st Letter: Hidden Pages

He dumped his bag on the waxed floor and slapped his thick mathematics textbook on an unoccupied seat. With a sigh, he sat down on his own battered armchair.

The classroom was nearly empty. Understandable since it would only be a few days until classes end, and most of the better students had gone to early vacations. Apparently his seatmate too, Julia, seemed to be one of the early vacationers. Probably that’s the reason why- to his utter dismay – his friend, Arcee, was the one who gave him back the textbook he lent to her.

He tapped his fingers on the crisscrossing vandalisms and took another look around. There were at least fifteen people left – fifteen and not a single person more – all nonchalantly waiting for their teacher to come back from the faculty room and hand out the make-up tests. Each one of them wore a dazed look and none bothered to speak, acknowledging the inconvenience of still having to be there at all.

He shook his head disdainfully.

Perhaps it was pointless to have come after all. And why does the day just have to be so painfully slow? Outside the sun burned mad at the cradle of the cloudless blue sky, causing the electric fans to overwork themselves till they burn out. It was a comfort then that it was a windy day; the summer breeze teasing the sleepy leaves back and forth now and then.

A fleeting thought of dipping in the icy crystalline waters of a certain luxurious beach resort crossed his mind, and it suddenly made the burden of attending these last few days of classes all the more insufferable.

Just as he was about to rest his head on his arm to attempt to take a nap, a vagrant gush of wind blew across the windows, causing the pages of his book to flutter open. He hurried to shut it and save any loose pages from falling out, but a stubborn piece of paper eluded his hands and fell to the floor. He stared at it at first then picked it up. With a curious grin he flipped it open.

A letter. To add up to his surprise of the alien object, for some reason the letter was addressed to him. A pang of apprehension suddenly built up in his stomach, a sickening feeling of the world suddenly turning around and around, and for the first time he felt amazed to see his own name. He thought twice before reading it, but his insatiable curiosity proved to be the stronger urge. With a gulp, he unfolded it and began reading.

“Dear Raphael,

By the time you have read this letter I’d probably be gone. I didn’t have the courage to give this you myself, so I tucked it in your book. I just felt that you deserve to know how much of a great person you are. You really are one of the few people that made my days here really worthwhile. You’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met. You didn’t have to cheer me up when I was down but you did, just by being there next to me.

To all the nonsense that I bothered to talk about, thanks for listening and enduring. It made me know that what I feel actually mattered, and what I think about is worthwhile at least. When I was alone, even though you’d just spurt out some sparing remark or even just cracked a little joke to cheer me up, thank you so much for going out of your way just to make a smile come to my face. Even though it may not seem like such a great effort for others, it really meant a lot to me. You don’t know the happiness of knowing that someone wants to make you smile brings.

For laughing when my jokes were really corny, thank you. A smile like that warmed my heart and completed my day. For reminding me not to do something wrong, thank you; the concern in you saved me. For the little moments we shared, I can’t thank you more than enough, because now those memories have become my lifelong treasures.

Especially, I thank you for being who you are. Finding someone as special as you was the most amazing thing that has happened to me. Nobody is perfect, and I wouldn’t want you to try to be anything but yourself. I’m willing to accept you for everything that you are. Your bad habits, your moods, your faults and your limitations, I’d really want to know them. I know that I’d be willing to accept them and love you more for them.

I wouldn’t ask you to make me someone special for you, can you just be there somehow and I promise you that I would love you. Believe me when I say that if only I can do so, if you’re down I’d comfort you, if you’re sad I’d make you happy, if you’re hurt I’d make it alright. Just as long as you need me I’d be there and even if you don’t, know that I care for you. Even though I’m hurting, I’ll still love you. I love you for who you are, who you were and who you’d be. Even if your future may not contain me my love would still endure. You have become the reason for my imagining, for anything that I know can make me more complete.

Still, I don’t expect you to feel the same way. Love by force isn’t love at all.

I know it might not make sense that I would do this now. I admit that I’m just able to gather enough courage to write this down because we may not see each other again, and so I wouldn’t have to face the possibly hurtful consequences of my actions, but I hope that because of this you may be able to keep me in a small place in your heart; just enough to keep the memory of you and me alive in there. Though it hurts me to be away from you, I guess it’s only fair for me to go because deep in me I had loved you selfishly. I loved you without giving you the chance of knowing, and that is one of the most unfair things that a person can do – to not allow someone to know that they are loved.

Raphael, do you know that it had hurt me to look at you, wanting to keep you, wanting you to be mine and when you stare back I see nothing in your eyes that promises the same feelings? Though it was heart-breaking I know that I’m the only one to blame, because it doesn’t mean that you have to love me back no matter how much I love you.

Maybe if only you had seen what my eyes meant when I looked at you sooner, and looked back, I could’ve given you my everything, but I guess some things are just not meant to be, so I just endured the pain of knowing I’d never be able to keep you.

Just remember…I love you for the pain, I love you for the joy, but most of all I love you for helping to complete me, because all that I am is you.

Love,

Julia”

Even though there was nothing left to read, he couldn’t let go of that piece of paper. A blank stare that bore through the letter snatched his consciousness from all motion. Was there a mistake? Perhaps there was a mistake. Never in his wildest imaginings did he think that something like this would be given to him. He did not even dare to fantasize anything that came close to this. It seemed too much to ask. And from her.

She was that girl who sat next to him, that popular but admirably simple girl in their batch. She was the girl that almost all of his classmates hopelessly revered for her saccharine beauty and her unpretentious kindness. She was perfect and without saying it out loud so many seem to gauge themselves and knew that any attempt to be beside her was useless. And she gave a letter like this to him? Confessing her feelings to him? But he was a mere surname that their teacher barked out each painstaking class session. He was just him.

He stayed that way for the longest time, frozen with disbelief despite the sweltering heat. Then he took out an envelope from his bag and held on to it tightly. It was a letter, a confession of seemingly hopeless love…

From him to her.