I walked in on my phone beeping and lightning up on my bed, I was reluctant at first since it wasn't a call but rather a message alert. I gave it some time while gallivanting around my room searching for God knows what!
Walking up to my bed where my phone laid, I sat, grabbed it and unlocked my screen to a message that seemed unusual to me - Hey Baby. I couldn't tell what the sender meant by that, but I had this habit of warning people against using endearing terms with me.
Baby wasn't such a bad thing to say to a girl, but it wasn't also sitting well with me whenever someone used that on me, especially if we aren't even close.
We were barely close, I and Desmond, we only talked once on very rare occasions. We say Hi to each other and exchanged pleasantries when the situations demanded we did and we didn't really have anything going on between us, it was that plain and simple, I doubt I considered him a friend at the time, let alone a close one, he was merely just another acquaintance to me.
I hated to be addressed as a baby, yet for an unknown reason, an Hey Baby from Desmond felt very different, real and fascinating, it wasn't a conscious act but I felt my lips separating from each other and my face lighting up with a smile.
I blushed? I couldn't believe myself, why would a text as simple as that have me all red and smiling?
A few minutes into this discovery, I didn't know what to say to Desmond or how to respond, so I left the message unread for a while.
I responded to his message after some time without any regard to what felt like a temptation to me.
Why wasn't I flaring up at the sight and thought of those endearing terms I hated?
Why didn't I get all worked up like I usually do the rest? There was something peculiar and fishy about the sudden change in my mood and emotion the moment that came from Desmond.
I wasn't so quick to conclude or make hasty decisions about my feelings.
I gave it some time, I watched it grow from seemingly harmless thoughts to something quite unusual.
Then one beautiful evening, Desmond and I spoke on the phone, for every little joke he made had me smiling from ears to ears and laughing like a child that is tickled on both side of the body.
Seconds became minutes, minutes turned into hours and hours into days until eventually it became a norm.
I and Desmond were constantly chatting, texting, and calling each other with him doing the most of these.
Few weeks down the line, Desmond asked about my thoughts on relationships, my experiences too. I honestly saw where this question was heading to, and I had lied to myself too that I didn't feel anything towards Desmond
Until he said it to me, he broke the news to me.
Desmond admitted liking me all these while but didn't know just how to let me know that he has been trying to let me see it, feel and realize it too.
He didn't force it on me, he didn't push it, he only just told me how he felt, asked me out and gave me time to think about it and come to a decision.
A few days later Desmond and I became a thing, everything was seemingly perfect, he was the best thing to have happened to me. A perfect first lover, an amazing person to a fault.
Some months later, things gradually took a different turn, I saw the withdrawal, I felt the absence, my instincts told me something was up, I smelled a rat but I wasn't bold enough to address it, I stayed and struggled in silence.
Communicating was becoming an issue, the least thing to have worried about was becoming troubling.
It lasted for days until I decided I couldn't take it anymore, this wasn't the Desmond I knew, it's not the same person that was bubbling, high spirited and lovable.
The person before me was becoming a shadow of himself, and I couldn't bring myself to condoning this version of him, so one lonely night I flared up, I asked what happened, what changed.
I flared up not knowing the demons and traumas Desmond had been fighting in silence.
I become even more upset that he kept it from me, the one person I would lay my worries with a free mind because he became my safe place was keeping things from me, was hiding his pains and worries from me.
Desmond indirectly got into a fatal accident and I only learned about this a few days after I noticed the sudden change in our conversation, how distanced he became and how he became quiet on me.
Starting from that day, everything became a struggle, hence our break up!
He just wasn't having It, and didn't want to listen to me about not breaking up just because he was currently going through hell and doing it all by himself.
It was supposed to be for a while till he got himself back, but I wasn't sure we were ever getting back together and we never did.
I lost Desmond, not to death!
I lost a love worth keeping!
I lost a love worth fighting for!
I lost a love worth my time!
And this is how the story of my first love ended without a trace.
A love from a distance!