I pulled out a pair of shorts from my drawer. It was a plaid one in white and pink-orange. They were short but not short enough to use for partying in a club, not that I would wear plaid shorts in a club anyway. A pair just right for summer wear, worn with a tanktop and flip-flops.

When I spotted them in a store last year, they reminded me so much of my then boyfriend. I don’t remember if we were already official then or not but I do know that I cared enough to buy them. Nepalis like wearing those below-the-knee plaid shorts and my boyfriend was no different. He had a blue one that he wore mostly indoors and got another in white but still with blue-green lines. He’d wear those pairs almost everyday.

I bought the pair thinking that maybe if I wear them, he’d see that I wanted to match up with him. I wanted us to be such a cute pair. Us in our white shirts, me in my pink-orange plaid shorts and him in blue. I had hoped he’d see that we’re such a cute couple.

I have worn those shorts a lot of times since last year, he never noticed. But whenever we matched, I would smile inside thinking how cute we were and how we might be made for each other. My secret little piece of happiness as we walk together in matching plaid shorts.

My boyfriend is gone now. The shorts remains. Somehow, when I wear them, it feels incomplete. Like there’s a hole. A feeling of longing, for the other pair of plaid shorts that it used to walk with. And maybe, most probably, the person wearing them.

——

(Nowadays, I wear them for me. Especially when I miss him so much. It’s nice to imagine that somewhere he’s wearing the other pair and missing me too.)