The One Who Bought Me Flowers
Katy Perry’s top-ten hit “The One That Got Away” reminds me of you. You were the obvious choice, a good, sweet Indian boy, after my debacle with the shopkeeper’s son. You gave me flowers often and I would cruelly ask if you could get me something else because flowers felt like a boring, repetitive gesture. How I would enjoy those flowers today.
Long distance gaped open the holes that had already formed between us. I broke up with you for myriad reasons, the biggest being that you bored me to tears. During one of our last dinners at Zaytinya in D.C., I remember sitting in a dark corner, feeling depressed because you had nothing to say while other couples filled the room with head-heaving laughter. Perhaps you were the yin to my yang. I was bubbly, talkative, an extrovert; you were reserved, quiet, an introvert. You were a good person with minimal verbal expression. I wouldn’t have been happy with you and, had I stayed, I would always have wondered if there was someone better out there for me. I’m still wondering.
Quiet and over six feet tall, fair-skinned for an Indian, with a full head of shiny thick black hair, you inconspicuously sat in the back of all our pre-med classes. I remember thinking in college that you were awkward and a dweeb. Friendster messages reunited us after graduation and you re-took my virginity. (As a response to my parents shaming me for my forbidden love affair with an older Yemeni man, I practiced celibacy for the next five years to show them I was a good girl after all). Picking you as a partner must have proven that. Or perhaps not.
My parents loved you like a son. You were my dad’s running buddy at my local school’s track and a caring older brother figure to my baby sister, making scavenger hunts for her delight. I don’t think she was delighted, though. You were a part of my family for what felt like forever, but in reality, it was merely two and a half years in my twenties. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again; I never got my closure. And for some reason, you think I cheated on you at the end, which I didn’t.
Whenever I hear the song “Cry for You,” a song you gchatted me as a symbol of your feelings, I laugh and think of you. I remember our bitter ending and how, though I don’t remember the details of our relationship, I do know I could and should have treated you better. I think of you from time to time, hoping you’re happy because you deserve the best. And though I still don’t regret our breakup, you will always have a place in my heart.