The Other Girl

A Sunday morning, nothing new
But this time it was not true.
For the first time did I ever
Dread a day with silent tremors.
The stage had been set from the last night,
To burn my dreams into ashes in front of my own eyes.
“Are you his girlfriend?” She asked.
“I am asking for a friend.”
I will never forget that nauseating feeling
That I felt at the pit of my stomach,
Like it was the end of something.
Fingers crossed, I played along for sometime.
“Why do you want to know? Who are you?” I tried.
“It’s important. Please tell me.”, She pried.
My heart sank a little bit more at her urgency.
Terrified I replied, “Yes, we are together. Now you tell me.”
She didn’t give me a specific answer,
But it was enough to make my heart crumble.
She was going to explain to me the next day,
But I knew that things had just changed.
Tossed and turned, I was awake the whole night.
Nightmares flooding my open eyes,
Our love flashed in bits playing with my mind,
I tried to have faith in you, in us.
But for the first time, it wasn’t enough.
The sun rose, and I cursed it for doing its job.
I was not ready to begin this day,
To take on what was in store for me, for us.
I pushed myself around doing routine work.
With one eye on the phone
Agitated in anticipation.

A few hours later into the morning,
She called to tell me about her friend.
Her friend and I were just the same,
Loving the same guy,
Both thinking we were the one.
The only difference being
She was the first,
And I was “the other girl”.
So, naturally her feelings took precedence over mine,
But can love really be measured with time?
Numb, I was trying to process it all,
When SHE called.
I still don’t know what I felt when
I heard her voice choking in tears.
Was it anger, hate, sympathy or pity?
Maybe everything or maybe nothing.
All I remember is not crying at all,
As she narrated her side.
If only I knew I wouldn’t be able to cry
For many months at end, I would have tried.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t show her that I was weak.
Or was is it because I wanted to protect her
Just like I wanted to protect me.

In daze, I half listened to her words,
My mind already lost in its own thoughts.
I was trying to make sense of it all just like her
Scrutinizing our love lives, little detectives at work,
When that happened which jolted me upright.
When she indirectly called me the slut,
Maybe thinking it was going to be alright.
“Poor you!” I thought, when she said,
“He loves me and all he wanted was to be
Physical with you since I was not by his side.”
I wanted to laugh at the silly girl,
Not sure if I felt hurt or anger or pity for her,
For she could not see what I did
That He was the main culprit.
I wanted to scream and insult her,
But I stopped myself as I remembered
That she had invested three years of her life,
What were my humble three months to that?
It felt somehow, my love fell short of hers,
And so did my agony.
She won by a huge margin at everything,
But I won’t let anyone defile my dignity.
So, keeping my pain aside, I replied,
“Don’t you see, It was always his choice.
If he wanted any one of us, he would’ve really tried
And not disrespect and lie to us all this while
He had to know what he was doing wasn’t right.
So, tell me where is the love from his side?”
Silent for two minutes, she quietly agreed
That the fault was his and not ours indeed.

For every tear she cried, I was blank.
For every complain she’d recite, I was numb.
For every question she threw at me,
Doubting the authenticity of my love
I patiently answered.
But in turn, I never questioned,
I never complained, I never cried.
For at the end there was no point.
How could I be mad at her
When He who mattered never cared.
I could not justify my feelings to her,
When I myself struggled to understand
If my relationship really happened
The way I had remembered,
I desperately tried to join the dots
To separate his fine lies from my truth.
All I wanted was for that day to end,
The night to hide me in its vast expanse.

That day has been stuck with me ever since,
Like an unseen tattoo becoming a part of my essence.
The vivid events are still etched in my mind,
Like a shadow that walks with me by my side
I have looked back on that day a hundred times
Whenever a tinge of loneliness grips me just like tonight.
I remember it as a witch hunt
Putting me on a stake for His crimes.
I was left to protect my honour from someone I barely knew
To prove I was innocent, my love too worthy of being divine.
I guess that’s where the difference between her and I lied,
For I never put her on trial, respected her pride.
I still remember her voice, her naivety,
I still marvel at how I handled it with dignity.
If given a chance, I would still choose to be me,
Empathetic to someone who saw me as her enemy.
That day I took a major leap in my maturity,
For the tag of ‘the other girl’ is a sham not reality,
To help the perverse act of the coward hiding behind
When He was the one who really should’ve been tried.
Instead they put “the other girl” on the trial because it feels good
Without realizing that she was hurt too,
Because she refused to garner sympathy​ at her expense
But trust me, she has been dealing with it as best as she can.