You start from the beginning. From those restless summer nights when you would lie awake in the dark, your thoughts vibrating, your body like an electric chord, so alive compared to the nighttime silence. Every part of your being wired to him.

You remember the first day of senior year, first period AP European History. And how the weather decided to wash away all remnant thoughts of summer with a hot, wet storm that left you shivering even when it was over. He was wearing a longsleeve gray sweatshirt and somehow it left you breathless.

Breakups have a funny way of making you remember all the little details, in fear of forgetting everything. Like the way he held your hand for the first time in the movies. You remember it made you want to cry but you weren’t sure why. Or the way you felt when you looked at him in little candid peeks: twisting his hair around his finger when he was thinking too hard and his rabbit nosed laugh. You remember the way his dimples curved when you kissed him and how he smelt like chlorine and laundry detergent.

It never feels like enough in the moment. You remember feeling a surge when you saw his white truck parked early at school, and being excited to see him after a period of class apart. You remember wanting to know every part of him with your fingertips, smooth fair skin, velvety to the touch, and fine hair on his arms, that turned golden in the sun.

You remember everything in a rose scented light, the kind that freezes a room into silent perfection and turns even dust into beautiful, floating flakes of gold.

You remember him as if he died. At first, it’s a suffocating feeling, too sharp edged for sadness. It lasts only a day too much for you to bear and then you lose all feeling and start to believe that you’d rather fall into an endless pit then hit the bottom every single time. When the feeling seeps back into your toes, you take off running because you want to get as far away as possible. But you can’t run forever.

Then you’re walking again without even thinking about it, as natural and normal as any other day in your life. You remember the nights when you would fall asleep at 3 am only because you couldn’t cry anymore. But sometimes its 10 am on a Thursday and the slant of morning sunlight and the smell of burnt toast makes you miss him so much you don’t know what to do with your hands. You can’t believe you forgot him, even for a moment, and to punish yourself, you remember.


You remember and you write, because you’re terrified of losing anything more.