That’s true Anita. Though she keeps her feelings concealed, but from whatever I know, her focus since that day has been more on my changed feelings. Even before we had this fight, we were talking pretty normally when she found out about my feelings from our friend, and blocked me on messenger without warning. When I asked her on Facebook, she said she’s considering leaving as some things there depress her. Only after 2-3 days she told me that she sensed what I am feeling, it won’t work out and she did not expect this from me. She’s also extremely hurt that I shared my feelings with our friends. Had it not been for our fight, I don’t feel I’d be feeling this horrible because of my feelings alone. But of course my own focus is on my vile behaviour which hurt her.

Spiritual brother… I’m not sure whether I could’ve called myself that. But yes, “one of a kind” surely fits. I used to feel like, why couldn’t I be her only brother and have a unique place nobody else has? I know it’s selfishness. But ever since she talked to me about the loving bond she shares with her cousin brother, I don’t even understand why my mind slowly went haywire. Others I love as my sisters also have brothers, but I never felt this way for anyone else. The only explanation is, I had developed these romantic feelings (for lack of a better word) for her already and I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. When I saw photos of them hugging each other, I got this insane “get your hands off her!” feeling. I went to her FB profile and spent hours staring at her “family members” section where he was listed as her brother, and I wasn’t. I know she couldn’t do it as she couldn’t risk her family finding out about me, but it still was no less painful.

I kept checking all the time if he was online, and once he was, kept demanding her what she’s doing, why she’s not promptly replying to my messages. If she was offline, I felt she’s chatting with him on FB. If offline there, I felt she must be admiring his photos on Instagram. Later she even told me that on some instances where he was present in person, she was chatting with me despite him wanting to talk to her. She said this to show that she loves me as much and unlike me, he’s not insecure and didn’t start demanding if she doesn’t love him as she isn’t talking, for he knows she does. Despite such wonderful rational explanation by her, I could not stand her loving anyone else as brother. This inner demon did not leave me alone.

All this was before I had accepted that my feelings for her had become romantic and were no longer brotherly. I had a long silly argument with her about why blood relations aren’t everything, and she was saying that blood family always gets priority from everyone. After talking to someone, I realized that the plug was in the wrong socket. Because my feelings were romantic, naturally my primitive instincts felt “threatened” seeing her with a “competitor”. If my feelings were just brotherly, that wouldn’t have happened. I wish I had accepted that long back, so all this could’ve been avoided to a large extent.