name: Caspian
gender: Male
when was a time they experienced unrequited love?:
(Note: I am a non owner, so each time it says 'she', 'her', or 'the girl' it is referring to a non-existing kalon that Caspian falls for. It is 600 words long, using my first extension)
At the end of high school, the admissions director of a theater college contacted me, impressed with my work and offering a full scholarship. At the time I spent much of my free time listening to music or playing it on my guitar, but my focus was set on theater, so I accepted the offer. Once I started taking classes there, I found myself often placed as a partner in group projects with one girl. We both had the dream of working backstage with famous plays, occasionally discussing our hopes over phone calls. While our roles were flexible, she usually worked with organizing costumes and doing makeup, I mostly made sure all of the actors were ready for the show and catch their cues using a headset. There were very few people working backstage with us, so our jobs often intertwined. We both volunteered for set building and had been taking lessons and programs on backstage theater. Actors and directors always get credit, whereas people like us are rarely noticed. To think of all the chaos that would ensue without us, we are like the butter that holds the sandwich together! We often spent study times together to discuss work and our theater lessons. We received quite a few odd glances from people, I suppose that must have been partially due to my outstanding height, but a lot of people came up to me asking if she’s my girlfriend. I always said no, we were just friends. As time went on, we worked less and less together. I became more nervous approaching her in person, but could not figure out why. My scholarship covered four years, I planned to stay the whole time and on the third summer, I decided to take a course on writing music. In order to get there on time, I had to stay with an old friend in an apartment far from home. I didn’t see that girl for that whole summer, and a few weeks in, she stopped texting me. I figured that she must have good reason not to contact me, so I let it be. I kept up to date with her social media page but I stopped posting. During that music program, I learned what made lyrics sound natural, how to word things powerfully and get lyrics to fit seamlessly with the music. The teacher called me a natural. As the summer went on, I realised how much I missed her, finally understanding why I felt nervous around her. There was a month before school started. I couldn’t get her smile out of my mind. I started writing a song expressing my feelings towards her, so relieved to get it out. I was really happy with it, showing it to the camp director who helped me make final touches. Once I thought it was finished, I sent it to the girl as an mp3 file, no comment. For days she didn’t reply, when I was astonished by a picture of her and another kalon, captioned “me and my new boyfriend! <3” on her social media. I froze, unable to do anything but stare. My jaw hung and my arms held my phone shakily in front of me. Once I could move, I unfollowed her, blocked her, and deleted her contact. After coming to my senses, I almost regretted what I did, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. The next day I scrapped the song, starting anew with a different idea. In that year, I would quit my work with theater to chase the more promising dream of music.
(Caspian playing 'House of memories by Panic! at the disco' on his guitar)
