To All The Friends I've Loved Before: 07
To All The Friends I've Loved Before: 07
roadtrips and mixtapes, John Mayer, and moments I'll never get back
To All The Friends I’ve Loved Before is a collection of unsaid promises to the people who have meant the most. The friends I’ve lost, the relationships I’ve ruined, the unspoken words between two people who never had a chance.
It’s by fate that you and I get thrown together again.
That I’m in that exact place, at that exact time, doing the exact kind of mundane nothing that makes your text seem like a prize.
can we talk?
It’s been months since I’ve heard from you. Watery eyes, lids squeezed shut, it just doesn’t make sense. Elizabeth Gilbert in my head, why does everything profound always happen on the bathroom floor?
Somehow, I always knew I’d hear from you again. Even when you screamed at me, swore we’d never speak again, the trust, the trust! I knew. We’ll never be done with each other.
But then I see it. Your name signed to the text; you think I’m the kind of person who deletes names and numbers, quick to dispose of the things that were once so easily mine. As if you ever were. As if I could ever be.
I wish there was some profound reason for this. That I’m a good person. That I see the best in people. That I’m not just scared to fully let go, to get rid of anything that once brought me comfort. This rigid, if not completely useless, belief that if something had purpose once, it might have purpose again, and if that’s true, then I just can’t risk letting it go.
I stare at my phone for a very long time.
I’ve thought of this moment a lot. The words you’ll say, the forgiveness I’ll offer. All the ways I can make this better for you. I know I’ll be too forgiving. Use too many exclamation points and ask too many questions and give you just enough to know I’m here, I’m here, without so much that you disappear. Again.
You are such a finicky thing.
I already know you’ll take too long to respond. That I’ll stay up re-reading texts and wondering what could have been. If only I’d said this, if only I’d done that. I’ll probably send too many follow-ups, things you won’t respond to. I’ll undo months of hard work and healing if only you let me.
My phone vibrates, fingers wrapped tightly around it.
I close my eyes. Road trips and mixed tapes, the concert you made me miss. John Mayer and the song you said was ours, Oh you don't think twice about me. Your hands, her hips, maybe you’re right to doubt me. Only to see it on your socials months later. Only to see you dancing to it with her.
The thing about me is, I don’t know how to operate in the middle. I know how to be enthusiastic and over-achieving. I know how to love fully and put others first. And I also know how to remove myself, turn away, and act like someone never existed.
It’s terrible how, even when we get what we want, we’re still so desperately unhappy.
I think about ignoring you. The way you’ve ignored me. Maybe you’ll never hear from me again. Maybe I’ll just disappear, change my number, move countries. Maybe if I do these things and become completely inaccessible, you’ll wonder about me. You’ll think, “I wonder what happened to her, the one that got away.” You’ll tell your friends and your family and eventually your children, and I will be forever a mystery.
But of course, I’m not a mystery. I’m painfully predictable. And no matter how hard I try, I will always give these emotions to the wrong people. With you, you deserve more of the bad than I can give, and you get more of the good than you deserve.
It’s the last moment I can pretend. I look down at my phone.
Choices.
I stretch out my thumbs and begin to type.
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