The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

It is. No matter how pretentious it sounds. It is deceitful. You texted me last Friday saying you'd missed me badly and wanted to see me for a coffee. I worked till 8 pm and couldn't do anything about it. I asked if you'd mind to see me after 8. You didn't know. Our schedules are pretty conflicting this autumn. I wanted to see you. I tried to shift my late class, but in vain. At about half past four the strangest thing happened: the late class canceled itself, quite unpredictably. I phoned you. You said you'd be free in half an hour. We met at five sharp and our casual embrace was probably a fraction of a second longer than usual. You said you'd missed me. You said it felt as if you hadn't seen me at all since I came back. I felt so too. I felt there was a little more tension between us than before. You wanted a scarf. That blue, striped Indian scarf which you'd seen a couple of days before. I said we should go and get it. We did. And dropped for a pizza into a restaurant nearby. It tries its best to come across as Italian. It was raining when we went out. The first proper autumn rain after two weeks of nervous dryness. Quiet, ingratiating. I didn't have my umbrella and we sheltered under yours. We talked and laughed of silly little things and it felt great for the tension had finally disappeared. The damp warmth was blissful. The leaves murmured above our heads. And I kept on thinking of the startling, huge, awkward, fluctuating feeling I've nurtured towards you in the past four years. And I couldn't help admitting to myself how agonizingly in love I am with someone else. I told you, didn't I, the human heart is so deceitful.