Sometimes, tears say all there is to say, and sometimes your first scars won’t ever fade. I wouldn’t call this a love story, and I wouldn’t call it a hate story either. It’s just a story about two people who wanted different things. Sometimes life just happens that way, you can never know what to expect from it. People are always changing and learning new things, often about themselves and others. Nobody can blame anybody else for things that “go wrong,” nobody can alter destiny.

I was young then. Looking back I might also say I was stupid, but I can’t really judge the adolescent mind seeing as how who I was is only a faint layer of who I am now. It was another summer day, like any other that had been before, hot and humid, the air was heavy at my heels. I was chasing a dream then, like any other girl my age; the edge of seventeen, and no one in the world could find a cure for dreamers. Back then, the night was my world, I would listen to the wind blow and watch the sunrise, and I was always looking around the corner for adventure. My parents didn’t care with whom I ran around, or even what I was doing with them. They just wanted to know I was safe, and I always made sure they did, even if I was in a position to get into trouble. I was deceitful and sly, and I suppose anyone might say I had it coming. To this day, it physically pangs my heart to think of it, of what happened that summer day that started just like any other. I was going to the beach with some girlfriends, something we had been planning for the entire summer up to that day, when finally it was going to be a reality. I was so giddy, I almost forgot my sunscreen, which would have caused quite a problem when taking into consideration my fair skin. I always burned so easily. That was the day we met-do you remember it? I picked you out of a crowd and talked to you, I had you pegged from the very start. I wanted you to want me, and I was willing to do whatever it took to get you. Do you recall the first thing I said to you? It made you laugh, and it made me smile to think that you enjoyed it so. I told you this, I remember it clear as day: “There’s two things I know for sure, I must be crazy to talk to you and you’d be crazier yet if you talked back.” That laugh you gave, that wonderful little chuckle as you threw your head back and smiled, it filled my heart with joy. Your eyes wrinkled, your lips curled, and I fell in love with your low rolling laughter at that very instant, and I never stopped loving it. I don’t believe I realized it at that time, but now my eyes are open wide. I think, in that instant, I fell in love with much more than your laugh; I fell in love with you.
I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, especially not now that you’re about to start a family of your own-I heard about the engagement, I supposed I should offer my congratulations, but I hope you’ll understand that I can’t. I’m so alone tonight, and all I can think of is that day we met, and every other good day after that. Every moment from the first time you said you think I’m pretty, to the last time you said you loved me. I believed those moments then, but now I just don’t know what to think.

I went on a walk yesterday, one of those long winding walks through the chain of parks there by Main Street, the kind of walk we used to go on together, you remember those walks, don’t you? Rain or shine, if we were in the walking mood, we’d drive to the park and just walk. As I went on this walk, I kept thinking of you, how you would hold my hand and I’d feel safe, if I was in a bad mood you’d always try to cheer me up. It was raining here yesterday, and as those raindrops kept falling on my head, I wanted you there with me. I want to be loved, but you don’t seem to love me the way you used to, back when everything was real. You mended my heart and made my life worth something, only to break it to pieces again. If I could write you a son, and make you fall in love again, I would do it in a heartbeat. But you have her now. I just wonder what you’ll do on that day when she’s got both hands in her pocket and she won’t look at you. That day will come; you must know somewhere deep down inside it will come. I saw you in the grocery store the other day, that day when we said hi and smiled and waved, I saw her ask you who I was, I saw you say nobody as you turned your head to catch one last glimpse of me, you thought I was looking at the apples intensely trying to pick those less bruised and more red. I was staring back at you, but carefully, I saw the look in your eyes, I know you wonder just as I do what would have happened had we stayed together. We’re no strangers to love, you know the rules, so do I. If you’re with her, and you love her, then stay. But know that there will come the day when she asks about your past, and you’ll have to talk about it, and she’ll see the look in your eyes when you talk about me and everything we had together, for love is a burning thing and it makes a fiery ring bound by wild desire. Love consumes you. You can’t deny that you were consumed by your love for me, that you were afraid. Perhaps I am wrong, but don’t try to wake me up. I’d rather spend my time thinking I’m right. I’d rather spend my life thinking you’ll come back to me one day. Yet, if anyone asks, I’ll tell them we both just moved on.