Like it never happened

It’s him my thoughts always drift back to. Especially late at night when I’m alone. I had a good run without him taking up space in my head, but it always happens like this. He just invades me every once in a while and I can’t help the temptation to remember him. Remember us. Even in the dark room, I can see our memories playing clearly on the ceiling. Sometimes it feels like it was all a fever dream. Or like the world has imploded but I’m the only one who knows.

I sit up, rub my eyes and place my feet on the cold hardwood floors. I promised myself I wouldn’t open that damn box again. I’ve made it two years keeping that promise. I grab my phone off the night stand, go on social media and search his name. There’s nothing. There hasn’t been anything in four years, but I keep hoping, if only to stop the constant wondering. For a while it was the only way I knew he was real, that he was still out there existing. We had six months together, hardly anything, yet I still feel his presence even almost a decade later. I hated him for a long time but it wasn’t enough to rid me of this connection. It was the first time I really understood the meaning of unconditional love. Because no matter what he did, I couldn’t stop myself from loving him.

It feels impossible, even now with all this time between us, that he could understand the depth at which I feel his absence. It’s a lead weight in my chest. A daily heaviness that I can’t rid myself of. Every day begins with him and every night ends with him. Every ray of sunshine, every glow of the moon, the butterflies and crows… flowers, writing, art, music… every single thing that matters reminds me of him.

You know, I’ve come a long way since he last saw me though. I’ve got my own apartment now. And I just graduated college. It’s crazy right? Who would have thought I’d do that. It’s a small studio apartment, but it’s all mine.

I get off my bed to take a piss. He’s still in my head. Nights like this, he never leaves. I wash my hands and stare at myself in the mirror. It used to scare me. To see myself looking back at me. If I stared long enough I was convinced I’d see her start to mock me. I wonder if he remembers that. The small, stupid things about me. I wonder if he remembers me at all. If I haunt him as he does me. Before him, grief and loss were things only death could create. I was naive to think I’d never have to feel it.

I go back to my bed, pull my journal from my side table and open it. I still write, but I don’t draw as much. Funny how that happens. The writer abandoned his artist so she foolishly abandoned her art to chase him.

June 18,

I’d like to write and say that I’m better, but that would be a lie. You’re here again. Or maybe I’m gone again. To that place where you exist. Where we exist. It’s always so warm, but leaves me cold. It’s hard tonight, to keep my promise to myself. I want so badly to open that box and feel the rush of nostalgia. Relive all our worst and best. But i know I’ll regret it. Because you hurt me. Because i hurt you. Because i miss you. Because i still love you.

You fucked me up so good that i sometimes have to laugh at it. Never did i think i would be here. Missing a boy from years ago that broke my heart over and over. But i guess i did the same to you in some ways huh? I think we are always going to hurt the ones we love, you and i. I guess that’s what people like us deserve though.

I rip the page out, crumble it up and throw it across the room. “This is bullshit.” I say into my dark, empty apartment. I leave my bed again, pace around my small space before stopping at my kitchen sink. I fill a glass of cold water, chug it, and then fill it again. This time I dump it on my head. The cold shocks me and now there’s a mess on my floor. But I’d rather be cleaning this mess than thinking of him.

I put the glass in the sink and grab some paper towels. I bend down and clean the water but my eyes drift up. To the top of my closet, where that god forsaken box sits. “Fucking leave! Damn.” Why did I keep that? I should have thrown it all away, burned it, left it in my old house. Anything would have been better. But I know if he could answer me, he would say we like to torture ourselves with what we can’t have.

I throw the paper towels away and storm back to my bed. I tug my cover over my head, nearly suffocating myself with the force. If I can go to sleep, then tomorrow will be better. He’ll be gone and I will be fine.

But I can hear him. I can hear his fucking voice, coaxing me. I can see his steel eyes as his pupils dilate. “Fine!” I shout at the box as I throw my cover off of me. Stomping to the closet, I yank the door open and pull the medium sized lockbox from the top. It burns me like a brand and I want to throw it out of my window. But I don’t. I gently place it on the floor at the foot of my bed and sit beside it. “You’ll never stop haunting me, will you?” I ask the box. I swear I can hear him laugh. Forever taunting me.

I pull the key from around my neck and unlock the box. My heart thrums violently as soon as I open it. I can smell him. I carefully start pulling the contents out of the box. My old cellphone, one of hi t-shirts, random jewelry he gifted me, letters, my old journal, art work I did, an old red circle skirt, and a Magic deck. I arrange them in a line. To anyone else it’s just a box of junk, but to me and him… it’s our entire story. Crammed into a lockbox.

I study all of them, letting our memories filter through my head. Will it ever stop hurting? I grab my old phone, attempting to turn it on. It’s dead. I get off the floor, ransack my junk drawer and find a charging cable. Moving to my bed, I plug the phone in. I shouldn’t do this. I know I shouldn’t do this. But the lines are only ever blurred where me and him are connected.

He was always able to make me question why I couldn’t do something. He used to tell me that good and bad aren’t real. That morals are subjective. Which is just stupid, because honestly who doesn’t know that when you think about it. But I thought it was the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard. I thought everything he said was brilliant, even if it was a pile of steaming horseshit.

I glance at the phone as it begins to light up with the logo. I jump off the bed, walk back to the kitchen and open my fridge. I should have went to sleep. Now I’m in too far to turn back, and the ache he leaves in me won’t go away. I grab a jar of pickles and take one out. I munch on it, leaning against my sink. This is fucking ridiculous. I’m 30 years-old. I’m a grown adult now. I finish my pickle and grab another one.

My eyes drift to our memories from the box, laid out across my floor. I wipe my fingers clean, put the pickle jar back in the fridge, and head back to my bed. I grab his old t-shirt on the way and pull it on over my tank. God, why is his scent still so strong? It’s been nine damn years. I tell myself that this is okay. In the privacy of my apartment, where no one knows what I’m doing, this is okay.

I know he would tell me that it’s okay any time, because good and bad don’t exist. That there is nothing stopping me from doing, or taking, what I want. But he never did have that voice of reason. He was never really bound by anything. Sometimes, I envied that. He seemed so free…

I grab the phone and unlock it. The background photo is of us. I remember taking it. He’s behind me, his hand is cupping my jaw and tilting my head to the side. His mouth is by my ear, teeth biting on the lobe. My eyes are half open. He was always able to get a reaction out of me. I remember the day I took this photo. We were at a party, at least what I would consider a party. It was the first one I had ever been to and the first time I met all of his friends.

I avoid going to the camera roll on the phone. I don’t want to see us together. I click on the messages. His name is at the top of the list. I only texted a handful of people back then. As long as he was one of them I didn’t much care about anything else. I exit the messages. I don’t want to read them yet. The dating app I met him through is on the home screen. I open it. I’m still signed in. The messages are still there. Like a little technological time capsule. I open the thread and scroll all the way to the top.

My chest is getting heavy and the world around me is transforming. Taking me back to him. To when we existed. To when it began. My nose fills with lavender and sugar and honeysuckle. Purple and teal swirl around me, and I swear I see him sitting across from me on the bed. Those steel eyes locked on mine. He always said my eyes reminded him of the trees and that’s why he loved them so much, brown and green and sometimes amber. They reminded him of home. Of where we came from.

I never did equate his eyes to anything other than steel. But I was wrong. They’re a winter sky, lacking any sun and sucking the warmth out of everything. And I never knew how much I loved the cold until I looked into his eyes.

And I can’t help thinking how foolish it was of me to think I could ever forget him. My soul will never forget. Never move on. I’m absolutely positively certain I will always love him. In every life. In every way. Always. But I’ll hope that the next time our souls meet it’s on time, under better circumstances. That we’re able to handle the weight of each other. Because I meant it when I said it’s the closest thing to magic I’ve ever felt.

And I’m terrified I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to find it again… trying to find him again.