Dear Philip,

I am tired.

It's been a month, two weeks, three days, fourteen minutes and as I wrote this, two seconds since we spoke. Since we fought.

You haven't called your folks, neither have you written back to me. I hope that you've received my letter. I hope it was not sent to some other Philip Fernandez.

Philip, answer me back. Talk to me. Call me up even if it is to yell at me. If you have moved on, please tell me that so I can bury the thought of never knowing when I would get to talk to you.

Linda gave me your personal email. Now that I think of it, what kind of girlfriend I was to not know your mail-id. Maybe the selfish kind. Maybe I was the kind of girlfriend who pushed people away to such an extent that they'd never want to talk to her.

Don't worry, I wasn't trying to guilt-trip you. All I ask of you and hope was that you'd provide me with closure.

If you've moved on and found someone worthy of your attention and your love, I wish you all the luck. I hope, you have a great life with her. I hope you are happy and this mail would be the last of my communications to you.

I am sorry for not taking your hints, Philip. I'm sorry for what I did to you, to us. I am glad to have found a friend in you, someone whom I can boast about to everyone.

I wish and pray, somewhere over this lifetime, we meet again.

Do say hi to me then.

~

The cursor blinked at me, asking me to sign off.

Suddenly it didn't feel right to end the letter with love. Having acknowledged the fact that Philip had clearly moved on while I stayed stagnant - a fool for hoping him to come back.

The words - Your faithfully, sincerely, all felt fake. I love Philip but I was also prudent. I didn't want my mail to land in some girl's hand who might be dating him. I didn't want to be the reason he was hurt more.

God, just the thought of him having moved on wrenched and squeezed my insides. My thoughts betrayed me. It painted a picture of Philip with some breathtaking beauty, someone with a slender waist and long legs. Someone who would wear his shiny engagement ring in her bony finger. Someone who would make him have his happily ever after.

I, on the other hand, would dunk myself in work all day, overeat lobster bisque and eventually die.

The cursor called out to me. The screen flashed up a message.

Do you want to save the mail?

Did I want to? Would I get closure, not sending it?

I pressed enter, watching the blinking stop and the churning commence.

Philip may or may not have received my letter but this would surely narrate his choice, his decision.

Hope was dangerous in these situations. So I flushed it out of my memory, pressed my laptop's flap shut and looked over to the street from the seat which Philip preferred.

Linda and I decided to meet after Jo Clementine informed me about the Three Aces takeover. Though the news was kept under covers, I knew GM's tyrannic days were over.

It was Linda, who contacted me a few days earlier, telling me she wanted to chat. I knew that she was excited about her father's exit. She was brimming with hope again.

"Hey." I didn't have to look to know, whose high-pitched voice it was. Linda tossed her bag on the couch beside mine and wrapped me into her mightily hold. "I missed you. It's so good to see you."

She squeezed me hard. Every inch of me struggled to escape her merry explosion.

"How are you?" I somehow wriggled my head up to look at her. Linda slapped me back on her chest like a mama bear, embracing her cub.

Rounding her finger for the waiter to fetch us our menus, Linda sank into the couch opposite to mine.

"How's my couch?" She began. I recalled Linda was concerned about her mother's death-trap couch when she left the apartment. "You're treated it good, right?"

"Yes. I'm treating it so well that it wants to move into my room," I said, making her roll her eyes.

The waiter fetched our orders and walked away. After a pause, Linda sighed as if she was readying herself for my next question.

"So... What happened to your dad?" I placed my words carefully, hoping she wouldn't feel bad for her state.

Linda didn't care about her vile father but I was worried if he still held something over her head.

When she smiled, drawing the corners of her lips till the corners of her eyes, I knew she was about to narrate a saga. I bent forward, my curiosity peaking. I wanted to know everything from the beginning.

"I still don't know a lot but I'm being kept updated by his lawyers. You don't know the toll it takes, pretending to be sad for my father in front of them." Linda rolled her eyes and gulped a sip of water. "It happened a week ago when he received a call. I could see the panic on his face. He was flushed. Something to do with his hidden records and shit and some offshore accounts."

I nodded vigorously with both my elbows plopped over my thighs, resting my face atop and watching a storyteller depict a picturesque rendition.

"GM contacted his lawyer and within minutes his bag was being packed." The smile on Linda's face depicted her joy, seeing her father suffer. "I was flipping out, Daisy, because I wasn't sure what was happening. Before he could explain to me, there were men at our doorstep, clad in black suits and taking him away. It happened so fast..."

She looked up from her coffee order that turned cold during her narration. Taking a long drawn sip, Linda closed her eyes. Her pupils danced underneath her closed eyelids.

When she opened her eyes, a soft smirk crept across her face. "Philip was there too, you know?"

My heart lurched. The world stopped its spin. My vision froze on her face while the rest of my body floated off its hold like someone turned off the gravity.

"I'm kidding," she leaned over and patted my knee. "But you should've seen the look on your face."

I was resurrected back into my body. My floating soul found its homing beacon and landed.

I smacked her hand for saying such a nasty thing and firing up my hopes. "Bitch," I muttered.

Linda mocked me with a gasp. "Stop swearing, girl." She giggled, bopping my nose and laughing back, freefalling into her couch. "Kids shouldn't swear."

Linda was barely six months older than me but acted as if she was my designated mother and sister.

"So does this mean you are coming back to the apartment?" I asked, crossing my fingers in my mind.

With her slow erupting smile, I got had my confirmation. Flinging off my chair, I tossed my body, nabbing her. "Now I am really happy."

It was a gist of what I felt. In reality, I was soaring. My roommate turned best friend was returning home. She was not sad, nor worried about her father's next course of action.

She was free. Happy.

Linda gulped the rest of her cold beverage in one long sip. Placing the cup on the table, she clapped her hand and leaned closer. "So, any news from Philip?"

Uncannily, his name enlivened the suppressed, pricking pain in my chest. I nodded sidewise, looking over the buzzing streets outside the window.

"No, still nothing."

"Oh honey," she cooed, placing her hand over my tightened fist. "Don't be sad. You know that he loves you and you need to hold onto it."

"Is it?" As if my mind found a new victim, the boiling rage inside drifted up into my mouth. Hurt people hated happy people. I was the living, breathing epitome of it. "How would you know? You don't know what he thinks or what he feels. Or why he left without any word."

Linda's happy face fell into a pit of despair. She peeled her hand away and followed my gaze outside the glass pane, to the world outside where everything seemed bright, shiny and full of happiness. Inside me, the shadows of melancholy lurked.

"I don't know what Philip thinks," Linda breathed into her palms, folded across her face. "But I have seen him without you. When you left for Roseville, when I went to say my goodbyes, I saw in him the love he carries for you. It was unbiased, unaltered. He wasn't portraying it for me. He was genuinely concerned. He was worried for you. He even asked me if I could contact you."

"Why didn't you?" I was desperate. So much so that I was looking for someone to blame. Someone to shift the onus of my burden, my pain too.

"I didn't know back then, what he did was to protect you. I came to know only when you told me. Then I was able to piece it all together. But by then it was-"

"Too late," I whispered.

The realization hit me hard. There was nobody to be blamed but me. I was responsible for my doom. My relationship suffered because of me. Nobody but me had to bear the repercussions of my actions.

"Listen, honey, I know you tend to blame others when things aren't right and spiral out of control." Linda left her seating and placed herself next to me, her hand rubbing my shoulder and her kind gaze soothing me. "What you can do now is talk to Philip. Tell him you were wrong and make up for it."

The dam that held my tears behind a mask of smile and pretense, broke open. Fat teardrops dripped down my face. I didn't care for the bystanders at the place, most of whom might have assumed Linda to be breaking some bad news to me.

Against my better judgment, I leaned into her chest and sobbed. Uncaring of what people thought, she held me.

It took more than half an hour before I calmed - courtesy of gulping ice-cold water which hurt my front teeth and Linda's soft patting on the sides of my face. Somewhere, all the crying since Roseville and back had my tear reservoirs run dry. Now I was left with a gaping hole in my heart and underpowered lungs.

"Honey, what is it?" Linda asked, kissing the top of my head with the concern she always carried like an elder sister.

"I tried contacting him. He isn't responding." And like that, the second set of tear induced tsunami rose and drained what little remained of my makeup. "He's pulling an MIA on me."

Linda's hold over me tightened. Maybe she understood that I wasn't being the stubborn brat she pinned me to be.

I told her about the long, heartfelt letters I sent. I bared my desperate attempt to contact Philip through his mother too.

Though the negative images of him being in trouble still shook me, I shoved them to the back of my mind. I was already suffering from Philip not talking to me or replying to my letters. If I entertained the idea of him having some trouble in life, I would spiral into a pit of darkness from where nobody would be able to fish me out.

After hours of being held by Linda's where she consoled me by telling me about her sad life when her father was around, I saw things from a different perspective.

I was still sad, that didn't change. But I was fine with it. I was in repentance for my mistake. I was learning what love was, what understanding meant.

Most of all, I wrapped my head around the fact that Philip might be fine, better than ever and with someone who valued him more than I could ever. I should have ever.

Somehow the understanding which should have hurt me the most made me smile.

~
Do you guys really think that Philip is dating someone else and that's the reason not responding to Daisy?
Or it the matter something else altogether?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.