us

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massie,

you broke my heart, and i want to be able to say that i think you’re a heartless bitch, but dammit, i still love you.

for some most likely stupid reason that i have no idea about, i still think about you constantly. i think about your smile, and how your teeth were cute and slightly crooked, but you were adamant about your “no braces” policy. you liked flaws, and your teeth, you said, was one of yours. i think about the freckles that gathered together on the lower right side of your jaw. you thought they made you look more abnormal than usual.

but i wholeheartedly disagree with that. those freckles put more of your personality onto your face, instead of just into your actions and words. i loved gazing at those freckles during the nights where it was just you and me. the nights where nothing else really mattered, because we were together, and i loved you – even now – and you loved me, just not really anymore.

i think about the birthmark you have on your left ankle. i remember when we used to try to come up with its own name – because it was this meaningful blob with a shape of its own somehow and we didn’t want to just call it a birthmark. we never did settle on a name; charlie, timmy, samantha noelle – our choices were endless, and i’ll always wonder if you decided to name it with someone else. i think about how you never complained about your average height – you embraced it. being short has its advantages, you always chimed. i’m fun-sized!, you would cheer afterwards.

and i love (i wish that would be loved) that about you. you being short gave me an advantage, too. it was easier to put my arm around your shoulders or around your waist, and i would always marvel about how perfectly we fit together. even though that’s what all the books say and all the movies describe, it’s true. you fit into my arms so well; in the mornings, i always found it difficult to let go of you. i never thought i would let go of you. and i was right, i didn’t. you let go of us.

i think about us, too. or, what has become of us. i’ve told kemp all of this, everything, every single thing, and i expected him to tell me that i’m a pussy and that i need to man up because you’re just a girl and give it a few more days and i’ll be over you because you were nothing. but he didn’t, and you weren’t just a girl, and why give it a few more days if it’s been a little over four months – shouldn’t i have been over you by now? – and you were definitely not nothing. you were more than something in my life for those three years.

three years.

you tossed out three years of us together. was it easy? forget i asked.

i remember the first time you took me to your grandparents’ house because it was your birthday and you wanted me there. you were turning twenty-two, and the next day was our seven month anniversary of being us. together. they asked me what i was majoring in (psychology), and if i really thought i could stick it for about eight more years because you know, son, you can’t get a nice paying job with that major unless you get your phd (to which i answered that i’ll set my mind to it, and get it done). you held my hand while they interviewed (you told me not to call it that) me, and i got through it because it was like i could feel the comfort and warmth and patience radiating from your hand to mine, and it traveled to my heart and my brain and suddenly i wasn’t so annoyed with all the questions they were asking because they didn’t want me to hurt you any more than you initially already were and i wouldn’t want to hurt you ever either.

i think about that night, that same night, that night as in the night of your twenty-second birthday. we stayed up until midnight, not that we hadn’t stayed up before, but there was something about our seventh month anniversary that both of us couldn’t wait for. as soon as your old clock hit twelve, you turned around in your old full sized bed and faced me and looked me in the eyes and told me you loved me. that wasn’t the first time we told each other we loved one another, but that was the first time you said it first. i kissed you on your forehead, and whispered that i love you also, and you should get some sleep because i had big plans for us in the hours to come.