CHAPTER THREE
Turning Point
Time flies so quickly.
Sometimes I look back and wonder how certain moments became so important to me, even though they seemed completely ordinary when they were happening.
I can’t remember exactly what made us start talking again. Maybe you texted me first. Maybe I suddenly felt like talking to you. Maybe there wasn’t even a specific reason.
I honestly don’t know.
I just remember thinking, why not?
We had talked before, and there was no reason we couldn’t talk again.
At first, I assumed things would go back to the way they used to be. We would have our conversations, joke around, call each other occasionally, and eventually go back to our separate lives.
Nothing serious.
Nothing that required me to think too deeply.
And, to be honest, I still had the impression that you mostly wanted to have fun with me.
I wasn’t particularly interested in taking things further in that direction, either. Something about it didn’t feel right to me at the time, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of our interactions being limited to that.
But then something unexpected happened.
I remember one particular moment when we were about to do what we usually did, and I deliberately started talking about the future instead.
I don’t know why I did that.
Maybe I was curious about your thoughts. Maybe I wanted to understand you beyond the person I saw on my screen. Or maybe, somewhere deep down, I was beginning to wonder whether there was anything more to you than the fun we had together.
Whatever the reason, I changed the subject.
And somehow, we didn’t go back to what we had originally planned to do.
Instead, we started talking.
Really talking.
We talked about our futures, our careers, our ambitions, and the things we wanted from life. We talked about the kind of people we wanted to become and the things we hoped to achieve someday.
And I remember thinking to myself:
“What the hell am I doing?”
Here I was, having a serious conversation about life with a guy I had met online, a guy I barely knew in person, a guy I had originally assumed would be nothing more than someone I could have fun with.
How did we go from that to talking about our futures?
It was so unexpected that I almost found it funny.
But at the same time, I liked it.
I liked the fact that we could talk about something other than the things we usually talked about. I liked hearing about your thoughts, your struggles, and your dreams.
For the first time, I felt curious about the person behind your face.
Not just the guy who called me unexpectedly.
Not just the guy who had once blocked me and bruised my ego.
Not just the stranger I had met online because I was bored.
But you.
The person you were when you talked about your life. The person who had ambitions, worries, and things he wanted to accomplish.
I began to realize that there were parts of you I had never really considered before.
And perhaps that was the beginning of everything.
I don’t know if it happened all at once or gradually, but I remember that around August, after months of talking on and off, I started seeing you differently.
I started to care about things I probably wouldn’t have cared about before.
I wanted to know more about your life. I wanted to understand what you were going through. I wanted to hear about the things that mattered to you.
And I remember you telling me about your struggles with your future, money, and your dreams.
Those conversations stayed with me.
Not necessarily because you said something extraordinary, but because I began to understand that there was a whole life behind the person I knew through my phone.
A life I couldn’t see.
A life I couldn’t fully understand.
A life that existed thousands of kilometers away from mine.
And for some reason, I wanted to know more about it.
Then there was that one sentence.
I don’t even know if you remember saying it.
You were probably drunk, or maybe you were just being random, because sometimes you would call me while you were drunk and say the most ridiculous things.
But I remember you saying something along the lines of:
“Let’s live together and move to Bali.”
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Seriously, what was that?
Were you being serious? Were you joking? Were you just talking nonsense because you were drunk?
I still don’t know.
Maybe you don’t even remember saying it.
Maybe it was just another random sentence that meant absolutely nothing to you.
But for some reason, it stayed with me.
I remember how strange it felt to hear those words from you. The idea was so unexpected, so casual, and so far removed from the way our story had started.
And yet, something about it made me pause.
I began to imagine what it would be like to share a little part of life with you.
Not necessarily in a serious, fully formed way. I didn’t suddenly have a complete picture of our future together.
But the thought crossed my mind.
And that was enough to scare me a little.
Because I realized that I was no longer looking at you in exactly the same way.
Somewhere along the way, the stranger I had once planned to forget had become someone I could imagine knowing more deeply.
Someone I wanted to understand.
Someone whose words could stay in my mind long after our conversations ended.
And that was when I started asking myself a question I had never really needed to ask before.
“What if I actually like this guy?”
Oh, God.
No.
No, no, no.
GIRL, WAKE UP.
You live in different countries. You have never even met him in person. You don’t know what his everyday life looks like, how he behaves around the people closest to him, or whether the person you know through your phone is the same person you would meet in real life.
And yet, here you are, starting to develop feelings for him?
Someone who lives on another continent?
Someone you originally met for fun?
Someone who might not even feel the same way about you?
Girl, please.
I tried to remind myself of all those things.
I told myself not to get carried away. I told myself that just because we could have meaningful conversations didn’t mean we were destined to become something more.
And I certainly didn’t want to confuse a few sweet moments with a promise of a future.
Because the truth was, I didn’t know what you wanted from me.
Maybe you liked talking to me.
Maybe you enjoyed having someone to call when you were bored.
Maybe you were comfortable with me, but only in the way people can be comfortable with someone they don’t necessarily want to build a relationship with.
Or maybe, as I had suspected from the beginning, you simply wanted to have fun.
I couldn’t read your mind.
I couldn’t know what you felt when you called me or what you thought about after we said goodbye.
All I knew was what I felt.
And that was exactly what frightened me.
I didn’t want to be the only person developing feelings. I didn’t want to become attached to someone who saw me as nothing more than a convenient part of his day.
I didn’t want to spend my time imagining possibilities that might never exist.
So I decided to distance myself.
I thought that if I stopped talking to you, I could stop whatever was beginning to grow inside me.
I thought I could protect myself by leaving before I became too attached.
It seemed logical.
If I knew I was developing feelings for someone who might not feel the same way, why would I continue putting myself in a position where I could get hurt?
Why would I keep calling someone who lived so far away, someone whose life I couldn’t be part of, someone who might never see me the way I was beginning to see him?
It felt safer to stop.
So I tried.
I ignored your calls.
I didn’t reply to your messages.
I convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, that I was being mature enough to recognize a situation that might not be good for me.
I told myself that I didn’t want to bother you with my feelings, either.
You had your own life, your own problems, your own dreams. You didn’t need me to turn our conversations into something complicated.
And I didn’t want to become the girl who expected too much from a guy who had never promised her anything.
I wanted to be sensible.
I wanted to be in control.
I wanted to be able to walk away before my feelings became stronger than my common sense.
But feelings are strange things.
Sometimes, the harder you try to ignore them, the more you become aware of their existence.
At first, I thought I was doing fine.
I thought I could get used to not talking to you.
I thought that if I gave myself enough time, you would gradually become less important to me.
But after a few weeks, I started noticing something.
I was checking your profile more often than I wanted to admit.
I found myself wondering what you were doing, whether you were okay, and whether anything interesting had happened in your life.
I wondered if you had noticed my absence.
I wondered if you ever thought about texting me.
And then I noticed something that made me feel even more ridiculous.
You hadn’t even saved my number.
Or at least, that’s what it seemed like to me.
And I remember thinking:
“Wait. What?”
I don’t know why something so small bothered me that much.
It was just a contact name.
Just a little detail on a phone.
It shouldn’t have meant anything.
But somehow, it made me question everything.
Had I really become so invested in someone who might not even have thought about me that much?
Had our conversations meant more to me than they had to you?
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Was I the only one remembering the little things while you were simply moving through your life as usual?
I hated that I was even asking myself those questions.
Because I knew I couldn’t demand anything from you.
We hadn’t made any promises. We hadn’t established what we were to each other. You had never told me that I was someone special in your life.
And yet, there I was, feeling hurt by something you might not even have realized mattered to me.
I felt embarrassed.
I felt childish.
Most of all, I felt confused about myself.
Why did I care?
Why was I checking your profile?
Why was I wondering about a guy who lived so far away from me?
Why was I allowing someone I had never met in person to take up so much space in my mind?
I wanted to laugh at myself.
I wanted to shake myself awake.
I wanted to say, “Girl, please get a grip. There are so many things you could be thinking about, and this is what you’re doing?”
But no matter how much I tried to reason with myself, one thing remained true.
I missed you.
And eventually, we started talking again.
I think I needed to ask you something. I wanted to understand why you hadn’t saved my number, and perhaps I wanted to confirm whether my suspicions were right.
Maybe I was hoping you would give me an explanation that would make me feel a little less foolish for caring.
When I brought it up, you laughed.
You said you had forgotten, or something along those lines.
I can’t remember the exact words anymore.
Maybe it really was an innocent explanation. Maybe you genuinely hadn’t thought about it. Maybe it was such a small thing to you that you didn’t realize how much I had thought about it.
I don’t know.
But I remember how I felt.
I felt hurt.
Not because I believed that saving someone’s number was proof of love, but because I had somehow allowed myself to hope that I mattered to you in a way that was different from everyone else.
And suddenly, I was confronted with the possibility that I had been giving meaning to things that were never meant to mean anything.
Maybe you hadn’t done anything wrong.
Maybe you were simply being yourself, living your life, and treating our conversations as they were.
Maybe I was the one who had started expecting something more without realizing it.
And that was the part that hurt the most.
I couldn’t even blame you for everything I was feeling.
How could I blame you for not understanding feelings I had barely admitted to myself?
How could I expect you to know what was happening inside my head when I hadn’t even figured it out?
I was the one who had started to care.
I was the one who had begun to imagine possibilities.
I was the one who had turned an ordinary conversation into something I kept replaying in my mind.
And I was the one who had to deal with the consequences.
That was when I finally admitted something to myself.
I was falling for you.
Not intentionally.
Not because I had planned it.
Not because I had looked at you and immediately decided that you were the person I wanted.
It happened slowly, somewhere between our random calls, our conversations about life, your stories about your struggles, and the little moments that probably seemed ordinary to you.
I couldn’t point to one specific day and say, “This is when I fell in love with him.”
There was no clear beginning.
No dramatic realization.
Just a gradual change in the way I thought about you.
And by the time I noticed it, I was already in deeper than I had expected.
Suddenly, the distance between us felt more significant.
I started thinking about the fact that we lived on different continents, in different countries, surrounded by different people and different lives.
You were in Morocco.
I was somewhere else, living my own life, with my own responsibilities and dreams.
I had never visited your country. I didn’t know what the weather felt like there, what the streets looked like, what people did in their everyday lives, or what it would feel like to walk through a place you called home.
I didn’t know what your ordinary days looked like beyond the pieces you shared with me.
And yet, somehow, Morocco had started to mean something to me.
For the first time, I found myself genuinely wanting to visit a country I had never really considered visiting before.
I wanted to see the place where you lived.
I wanted to experience the things I had only imagined.
I wanted to understand the world you came from, even if only a little.
And that was such a strange feeling.
A country I had once known only as a name on a map had suddenly become a place where someone important to me existed.
I began to think about the possibility of going there someday.
Not because I knew we would end up together.
Not because you had promised me anything.
But because, for the first time, I had a personal reason to be curious about a place so far away from my own world.
And I prayed that one day, somehow, it would happen.
Maybe I would visit Morocco someday.
Maybe I would see its streets, experience its weather, meet its people, and finally understand what your world looked like beyond my phone screen.
Maybe I would even get to see you in person.
Or maybe none of those things would ever happen.
I couldn’t know.
All I could do was hope, quietly, while trying not to let that hope become something I depended on.
Because even as my feelings grew, my doubts grew alongside them.
I kept reminding myself that you might not like me the way I liked you.
You might simply enjoy talking to me.
You might be attracted to me without wanting anything more.
You might have your own life, your own possibilities, and your own reasons for never imagining a future with me.
And I had to accept that possibility.
I couldn’t force you to feel something you didn’t feel.
I couldn’t make distance disappear just because I wanted to be closer to you.
I couldn’t turn our conversations into a relationship simply because they had started to mean something to me.
So I tried to keep my feelings to myself.
I didn’t want to push you.
I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.
I didn’t want to become someone who expected you to return feelings you had never asked me to have.
I told myself that if you wanted to leave, I would let you.
I would try to forget you.
I would return to my own life and eventually learn how to think about you without feeling anything.
At least, that was the plan.
But then I noticed a small change.
You saved my contact.
I know how ridiculous that sounds.
After everything I had thought about, everything I had questioned, and all the emotions I had tried to hide, something as simple as you saving my number made me feel a little hopeful again.
I remember thinking, “Oh.”
Just that.
“Oh.”
Maybe you had simply decided to save it because you wanted to. Maybe you were tired of seeing an unfamiliar number. Maybe it meant absolutely nothing beyond the fact that you finally had my contact saved.
I knew that.
I really did.
But a small part of me couldn’t help wondering whether it meant something more.
Maybe I hadn’t been completely insignificant to you.
Maybe you did care about keeping me around, even if I didn’t know exactly what that meant.
Maybe there was still a possibility for us to become something more.
And just like that, the hope I had been trying to suppress found its way back into my heart.
I laughed at myself because I knew how easily I could turn a small gesture into a thousand different possibilities.
But I couldn’t deny that I felt happy.
For the first time in a while, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that our story wasn’t over yet.
I didn’t know where it would lead.
I didn’t know whether you would ever feel the same way.
I didn’t know if we would eventually meet, whether our lives would ever align, or whether we would simply remain two people who had shared a strange little connection across the internet.
I didn’t know anything for certain.
But I knew one thing.
I no longer saw you as just another stranger.
And perhaps that was the real turning point.
Not the day we met.
Not the day you called me.
Not even the day you told me we should live together and move to Bali.
It was the moment I realized that I had started to care about what happened next.
Because once you become someone I care about, you are no longer just a random person I can forget whenever I want.
And that realization scared me more than I wanted to admit.
Still, I found myself hoping.
Maybe a little foolishly.
Maybe without any guarantee that my feelings would ever be returned.
But hoping nonetheless.
And if there is one thing I have learned about myself through all of this, it is that the heart doesn’t always ask for permission before becoming attached to someone.
Sometimes, it simply happens.
And sometimes, the person you least expect becomes the person you find yourself writing about late at night, trying to understand how something that started as a joke slowly became something you could no longer laugh away.
So, hello again, stranger.
I don’t know what you will become in my life.
I don’t know whether you will stay, whether you will leave, or whether we will ever get the chance to discover what we might be like in the same room, in the same city, sharing the same air instead of a phone call.
But somewhere along the way, you stopped being just a stranger to me.
And I think that’s where my story with you truly begins.
To be continued…
