In Another Life

Do you ever wonder if, in another life, we didn't choose each other?

If in some alternate universe we chose to go our separate ways long before we knew what we were losing. Long before we understood what it meant to stay.

We healed on our own terms instead of mending our broken pieces together. We bit our tongues and put the friendship first, never knowing crossing that line could change everything.

In that life, you probably moved far away. To a city much larger than our small town. A place where people rush by without a second glance and the buildings reach up to the clouds. The kind of place you'd be able to disappear in, just how you like.

I can imagine you walking with your hands in a hoodie pocket, headphones playing some depressing song. On the outside you look lonely, but internally, you're living out your dreams.

I was happy for you. I really was.

Before you left we promised we'd call often and text daily.

At first we did.

Until we didn't.

Until the constant check-ins were replaced by an occasional update about our busy lives.

Even those came fewer and fewer. Until happy birthday, merry Christmas, and hope you're well became all we had to say.

Like peeling a band aid from your skin little by little until finally it comes free, and then you realize that's the most painful way to do it. Everyone knows it's better to rip it clean off and get it over with.

That's how we lingered in each other's orbit. Until the door closed between us, leaving us with nothing but a melancholy memory.

I'd hear you were back in town through casual, friendly conversation. The knowledge would cause my world to stop spinning for a moment, but I'd continue on as if I didn't know.

We'd move through the same places but never cross paths. Buying last-minute gifts from the same store one day apart. Sitting in traffic on opposite sides of the interstate. Ordering coffee from our favorite spot but arriving an hour too early, or one minute too late.

We would have been fine without each other.

Eventually, you'd fall in love with someone kind and gentle. Maybe you'd move back home to start a family. Settling into a quiet life filled with a comfortable routine.

Maybe I'd find someone, too. Someone who could make me laugh at all the right times and become a steady, calming love where I'd only known chaos.

We'd move into new homes and fill them with memories. We'd keep our old pictures tucked away in a keepsake box, never brave enough to throw them out but not sentimental enough to look at them often.

Every once in a while, we might look each other up and scroll through pages of that belong to someone who is now a stranger. We'd smile in relief, knowing the other turned out happy after all.

Maybe our children would be close in age. They'd end up in rival high schools. We'd sit on opposite sides of the field, on cold metal bleachers underneath stadium lights. Blissfully unaware the person we once adored was only yards away.

In that life, we didn't choose each other. And somehow, that would be okay.

Somewhere across the universe, in that alternate reality, we exist. Parallel, separate, content.

We don't know the warmth of sharing a too-small bed together, the aching laughter of our midnight board games, the Saturday naps where we close the black out curtains and forget the world outside.

No. Those versions of us have their own traditions with other people. They kiss someone else goodnight. They've built lives that are beautiful each in their own way.

Still, I can’t help but ask, when those versions of us are up late at night...When the house is still and the night is quiet.

Do they ever dare to let themselves wonder, hope, wish?

That maybe. Just maybe.

In another life, we chose each other.