After deliberating the many sidetracks my life undertook, I decided to start afresh. The place to do so was my new residence.

Although I still couldn't afford a place of my own with my current pay, John was sure that my performance at the restaurant would surely get me a hike soon. So to wrap up matters, for the present duration I was staying with Linda.

Her father was a famous attorney and the money minting he did with his celebrity clients, Linda had the luxury to stay alone. She was kind enough to provide me a nesting place when she saw me constantly checking my phone for rental places.

The piece of heaven that was Linda's abode, was a two bedroom place with a hall that could very well feature in the architecture digest magazine. The open area in the balcony had potted plants and a few climbers that decorated the side walls. The greenery was a respite for sun sored eyes. With temperature rising up daily, the weather was not only harsh on the skin but even part of the body. I would be a surprise if I didn't burst into flames one of these days.

"Welcome home," Linda announced as I stood with my luggage and a few boxes. She eyed every piece that I carried and tossed her head up. "You only have two bags and a cardboard box?"

"No. The remaining stuff will arrive soon. I could only carry some."

The bedroom she pointed to was smaller than the one she had but hey I was already locked up in heaven with a place I could call home. With both of us huddled in my room, Linda helped align the starry lights over the window. With the rest of the luggage arriving in no time, the whole day was taken up in decorating and revamping the place.

Linda ensured that our Sunday, the only day we have an off was wasted in moving my bed in such a way that the energy flows. I had no clue what she meant but still went with the flow. Only when the last piece of furniture was set and the last of the plush pillow was neatly aligned into an already existing line of pillow mountain, did she fall back on the couch.

Exhausted, we were spent even to lean over to the table and reach for our glasses of lemonade.

"We did good. Didn't we?" She asked, wriggling her fingers towards the glass, resembling someone who would try conjuring magic to levitate things.

"Thanks for the help, Linda." I was genuinely humbled with her help and gesture. Not many would take up acquaintances without a second thought under their wing. In my case, in their home. With a dismissive hand wave, Linda put her magic incapable hands to a good used and hunched over to fetched us the drink.

"So tell me how was the date with Steve?" She plopped back on the couch, which fell under her weight. Linda wasn't heavy. Light as a twig, her couch was the only old furniture in the otherwise fancy apartment.

In my moment of weakness, while fighting to decide if I wanted to complicate things at work with Steve, I approached Linda for advise. It was also the same moment when things about Philip started to stumble out. Before I knew, the avalanche of feelings and emotions were delivered to Linda who braved it all and suggested I should take up Steve's offer. 

Only if she knew the latter events.

"Fucker ghosted me." I said, cringing my face to display annoyance. I wasn't.

With eyes almost shooting out of her socket and her lips unable to hold back the drink within, she sprayed it over me along with her words. "Why would he do that?"

"Umm.. That's the thing about ghosting, you don't have to explain."

The face of the companion who rendered his company rose in my thoughts. Unknown to me, my lips curled on the side, only to be poked by Linda. "What's that smile for? Are you happy that he ghosted you?"

"No. Not that. I am happy for what happened next." Like kids in a camp who huddle around to listen to haunted stories, Linda pulled up a cushion and chested it. Her hands held her curious face and with every blink it seemed as if she was absorbing my coffee talk with Philip. After the narration, she remained statue for a moments together. "Say something," I was worried to have lulled my new roommate into a state of story induced coma.

"This is so ggreeattt," she raged on like an engine gearing up to speed. Holding my hand, she pulled me from the comfort of the couch. "This is like the second best meet cute I have heard."

"What was the first?"

She tossed her head to a side, dismissively. "Oh some old movie mom made me watch." Linda's excitement engulfed me as she twirled me around. "Tell me you told you him how you felt?"

My feet came to a standstill but the rest on my body spun both under inertia and with her words. Falling back on the pale couch that nested my swaying body, I held out my hand for her. She slid next to me, pushing me into the backbone of the creaking couch.

"You are kidding right?" I said, trying hard to get off the depth into which I was shoved.

My hands and legs rose up in an attempt to hop off the couch but the dead spring action kept engulfing my body into its core like I was being trapped in a quicksand. Linda's added weight didn't help. When all hopes of getting off this furniture was lost and I was sure to grow roots in it, I snaked my arm around Linda. Within moments I was transported into the body of a two year old who would hug her friend and talk.

"I can't tell him how I feel. I..just can't."

Secretly hoping that she wouldn't pry, I closed my eyes and remained unmoved. Maybe she would assume I was asleep. When her finger flicked my nose, I pushed her off the couch and she landed on the floor.

Even with enough space to get off, I still couldn't get off the crater that held me in its belly. Linda giggled, watching me struggle. Only after several attempts did she bestow upon me the knowledge to get off the viciousness called our hall couch. Once out in the safety of the marble floor, I sat next to her.

"What is stopping you from telling him?" was Linda's legitimate question but there was no answer which I could conjure.

Why was I not telling him wasn't a first time question asked of me. 

Before Linda, both John and Sasha and some of my school friends too have travelled down that question path, only to find me with no answer. If truth be told, maybe it was the fear of rejection or the looming predictions of the future. If he would reject me, I would not only be left with a broken heart, I might not be able to piece myself back together.

I knew it was a long shot for someone who never even attempted for a confession to begin with. For all who thought so, let me ask you something.

Would you ever knowingly open up your heart to someone, confess your love with the understanding that it might not be reciprocated? That the hope of giving away your feelings and those carefully nurtured emotions would stand a chance to never coming around? Were you capable of taking Sorry I don't love you or I love someone else, were words you could endure without the sharpness of those word slicing away pieces of you and your soul?

If your answer to all that was a yes, them I am glad that you are one of those daredevils in matters of heart. But I regretfully state that all those question fell under negative for me. I was never the bold girl and I would never be.

"Snap out of it," Linda nudged me off my thought train. Boy, did I derail.

"To answer your question what's stopping me is the part that he wouldn't reciprocate," that was my long and short reply.

"But what if he does hon. You know, a man does not simply give a girl company if he isn't interested."

I was both fascinated and surprised at her school of thought. "Chivalrous men do that without any underlying intentions. And maybe in Philip's case, he so badly wanted the seat that he sat with me till I left."

"You said you both left together," she was listening to my narration to point out my excuse. "You are just making up stuff because you don't want to let him know."

Her accusatory finger danced near my face before I swatted it away. "No I don't," I blew up my lips in retort. Classic Daisy move.

Linda seemed determined in her quest to prove me wrong. Holding me in place, she narrowed her gaze over me. "You want to accept or not, but its very clear that you are acting like a coward."

Didn't I know that?

"If this is your move to get me to do something then forget about it, Linds," I scrambled out of her hold and walked towards my room. Tossing my head over my shoulder, I answered. "Not everyone gets what they want."

My words dragged the chirpy girl in her to a state of melancholy. Her cheerfulness was tossed aside and lathered with what could only be read as hurt. My heart was split in two. Wanting to help her talk and get the weight off her chest, it was my mind that convinced me to move away.

After all, how could one broken entity help another?

~

Sometimes hiding the contents of the heart takes more courage than narrating it.