Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy all the time. But she was worth all of the hard times.
See, I had to move two and a half hours away from her, so we didn't get to see each other very often anymore. After seeing each other almost every day for five years, this was hard. We were approaching our three month anniversary and every time I had to leave her or vice versa was harder than the last.
I'll never forget the day we suddenly decided to meet up in Memphis and we rode an hour and a half together to where I lived. That's the day she met my father. I remember how nervous she was. She had her phone in her hands and she was playing with the case, making it click against the front of the phone above and below the screen. She was clicking her thumb nails together. Grabbing my hand. Messing with her shirt. Really, anything to keep her hands busy so she could stay calm. That was her thing. If her hands were moving, she was okay. It's why she was constantly on her phone.
I'll never forget the way she looked at me when we were on our way to meet up with her parents so she could go back home. I was driving and, as always, I grabbed her hand with my free hand. She squeezed harder and longer than usual. Not enough to hurt my hand, though. Just enough for me to notice. When I looked over at her, she was looking out of the passenger window at the trees zipping past. At the rolling hills and the changing scenery. Tears were forming in her eyes and started to drip down her cheeks and onto the hand that I wasnt holding. Then she turned her gaze to me. I could see her zoning in on my face, trying to remember every detail. There was so much pain in her eyes that it knocked the wind out of me.
I stroked my thumb over hers and she just slightly tightened her grip.
I knew this meant that she didn't want to let go. And, quite frankly, I wasn't ready to watch her leave. Not again.
Once I looked away from her and back to the road, I couldn't look at her again without tears forming in my own eyes and blurring my vision.
I kept silently telling myself, "I will not cry. Not yet." But the tears were forming.
Thankfully, she made a joke that made us both laugh and I was able to choke back the oncoming sobs of knowing I wouldn't be able to see her again for who knows how long.
We were slowly but surely closing the distance between spending the day with her and having to watch her be pulled out of my grasp once again and I couldn't take it. My limbs felt heavy. Like they were made up entirely of lead. I could feel the energy and the happiness leaving my body just as quickly as it had come on the way to get her.
Then we were there...we pulled into the parking lot of the place where we were meeting her parents. We sat in the car for about fifteen minutes, just looking at each other and quietly saying "I love you"s back and forth.
Then she had to text her mom and tell her that we were there. They pulled in shortly after and we got out, walked across the practically empty lot to meet them, and hugged. I didn't want to let her go. I never did. I wanted to hold her and protect her every second of every day, but that just wasn't possible and she had to rip herself away. I saw how much it hurt her. Her eyes always gave everything away. Or maybe I was the only one to know her well enough to read her. Either way, I knew this was killing her just as much as it was killing me.
Then I had to leave. I watched her get in the car, then walked back to my own and got in. I pulled out of the parking lot and pulled out..I drove away from her. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but I had to it. I had to get home and be at school the next morning. I had to leave her again. Jesus, you don't understand how much I didn't want to go away from her. I missed her as soon as I saw her get into the back of that little red Honda of her stepdad's. Hell, I even missed her when she was sitting right beside me with her hand in mine on the way back.
It wasn't easy. Not at all. But it made us stronger as a couple and it really made us value our time together.
And not a day went by that I didn't think about that night in the snow.
