And I remembered

I see you, your shoulders hunched and your eyes pointed towards my feet.

I imagine you have things to say - I know I do as well - but I can’t help but be reminded of that same posture three years before.

The shoulders were up to your ears then too - but I imagine it was more nervousness that first time. Now the burdens tightened the muscles.

“Hey,” you say, your eyes glancing up at mine.

A million questions are swirling in my head - a tornado and tidal wave colliding.

“Hey,” I call back, my voice hoarser than I had expected - unused. The word is a gasp of air over the curling waves, but my lungs still squeeze and clutch against their captors.

So much of our past flashes before me in quick spurts of color. A kiss. A touch. A laugh. A melody. A glance. And an explosion of anger and fear and fury that led to the goodbyes and the here-are-your-things and the I-wish-things-had-been-different.

It feels so little looking back on it - so insubstantial - but the curve of that road had led me straight over the cliff to the deep water that now held my breaths for ransom.

“Do you…?” You start, half a question spoken, but it shatters against mine.

“How has…?” I huff, a small smile tugging at my lips. Your laugh sounds like a cough, and neither of us finishes the thought.

And then both of us are just standing there - words caught in our throats like fish on worm-baited hooks. Mine are threatening to swim back toward my stomach, but I fear they will be eaten by the acid that lurks there. And so I spit them out.

“It’s nice seeing you.” The moment those words hang in the air, I see your chest constrict and I wonder if similar words are curled on your tongue.

Your mouth attempts to shape the words a few times before they come to fruition.

“I miss you every day. Every moment.” Your eyes finally meet mine then - swimming blue orbs of hope and tenderness. And I remember - I remember falling in love with you and counting the moments we were apart and thinking all of our future days would be shared ones.

And then I remember the way the clouds had rolled over those brimming blue eyes as you’d said words that were carved into the inner shell of my skull. You are damaged goods.

I was the dented can at the grocery store.

Unwanted.

Discounted.

Leaveable.

“Yeah.” The syllable is drawn out, and I pluck my tongue against my teeth, poking at it with the sharpened edge of my canines. I can’t return the same words - the missing.

Part of it would be true, of course. There were so many things I did miss about you. About us. And even stacked up to rival the reasons we imploded, the reasons I had loved you were a skyscraper next to a humble home.

But those reasons were still made of fire.

And our love had been made of wood.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I reach for it out of instinct.

“You have to go?” You rub the toe of your left shoe against your ankle.

My eyes scan the text - BOGO at Shoe Carnival next week.

“I imagine I should.”

“We didn’t even get a coffee,” You say, gesturing to the front door, the precipice we hadn’t stepped over. Your eyebrows climb up your forehead.

“I’m sorry.” I don’t offer an explanation. I don’t know that there’s something I could say to make you understand. Hell, I don’t know that I could explain it to myself in anything other than this boulder-sized stone in my gut.

You almost object. Almost bring words forth.

But instead, you just nod, holding out your arm for a half-hug.

I oblige, leaning into your barrel-shaped chest and breathing in the scent I had known as home.

“I’ll always love you,” you whisper into my hair.

And I let you go.