Unread Message
For the first time in my life, I felt everything inside me coalesce into a single point…
My mind, which was accustomed to running away, and my heart, which had never known courage.
It wasn't a visible battle, nor an audible struggle, but it raged within me, a clamor that threatened to tear me apart. Every step toward that moment was heavy, as if I were walking over my entire history, over every previous hesitation, every missed opportunity because I lacked the courage.
To others, it was simple… just asking for a number. A classic, repetitive gesture, perhaps even mundane. But for me, it was like standing on the precipice of something whose end I couldn't foresee. What if I was rejected? What if I only gave a polite smile? What if I was misinterpreting all the signs?
What do I do if the other person I want to know more about isn't interested in me, and I'm older and not at all outgoing?
And when I finally spoke, the voice wasn't what I'd imagined. It was weaker… but it was real. The words came out laden with all my fear, all my hope, all the chaos I'd tried to hide. For a very brief moment, I felt time stand still, and the whole world was waiting for my reply.
I didn't know what would happen next… but I knew one thing: that, for once, I hadn't run away.
I was looking at him when I dialed his number, and he smiled at me. Michael recognized his cold expression, and that was a very good sign for me. I was so excited, but I never showed it, not even a smile. Then I turned and went to the bathroom, phone in hand. I closed the door and looked in the mirror; my face was red.
I feel embarrassed. Is that why he smiled then? It doesn't matter. The important thing is that I got his number. Oh, he took out his phone when I dialed his number. Is it possible he wanted mine too?
Hey, I don't think so… I really don't think so.
The days passed with a strange slowness, as if they were testing my patience more than actually passing. I had his number saved.
Sometimes I would stare at it without doing anything, opening the chat then closing it, writing a sentence and deleting it before it was finished, as if I feared that the first word would determine everything that followed.
I often wondered: Should I send something simple? Something ordinary, perhaps even trivial? Or should I wait for a "perfect" moment that might never come? But the truth that began to seep into my mind quietly was that beginnings are rarely perfect… and that most beautiful conversations begin with a very ordinary sentence, weightless, unplanned, simply because it was written in a small moment of courage.
The hardest part wasn't the fear of sounding silly, but the fear of no reply, or of a cold, curt reply, as if it were saying without explicitly stating: "You shouldn't have started." Yet, a faint voice inside me whispered that silence, too, was a choice… but a choice that offered no answer.
Perhaps the problem wasn't the "triviality" of the message, but its sincerity. A simple, spontaneous message, like, "Hi, how are you?" or even a comment on something you both share, might be enough to break the ice.
In the end, I realized that the hardest step wasn't asking for the number… it was using it.
In a moment of weakness, I sent the message I'd always been waiting to send, simply writing: "Hi, it's Eun-seo. Do you have time now?"
It was 1:00 AM.
The result was an unread message. I waited for a reply while drinking outside my house. After two long hours, his message arrived asking for my location.
I gave him the address of the place where I was sitting and waited. That night changed everything about my relationship with Michael.
It is raining now, and heavily.