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This Is How It Feels When We See Each Other Again
It won’t be a day that starts out remarkable. It’ll be raining and I’ll dip into that local coffee shop near my place. I’ll be scrolling through my phone. Then the barista calls your name and my heart momentarily leaps into my throat. Except your name is so common it can’t possibly be you, right?
But it is you. With your tousled hair and smirk that drove me crazy for the right reasons at the beginning of our relationship.
The world will slow down as you move towards me. It’s been what? Five — no six years. The anger that used to inhabit my veins when it came to you has dissipated. It’s no longer threatening to boil over and cause damage to not only myself but every single person in this cafe.
Your eyes connect with mine and that’s when all of those feelings we used to have bubbled to the surface. It’d be so nice if we could strip off all of the pain and all of the love. It’d be great if we could go back to the kids who used to not give a shit about their future and just loved each other — flaws and all.
Those days were the best. We had nothing to worry about other than what we wanted to watch on TV or what we were going for breakfast on Sunday. The ones where we’d make out for hours before our bodies became one. It’s one of those memories that when I relive it, I feel like I’m temporarily home again. Because you were my home for so long.
When you do reach me, you rub the back of your neck the way you always did when you thought I was going to get angry about something. But I’m not angry anymore with you. What’s the point? We were kids who fell in love, tried to find ourselves in each other and ultimately failed to be able to move past our petty arguments and stubbornness to make it work.
We used to argue over so much — what this was and what it wasn’t. You saw marriage while I saw temporary. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me — the girl who couldn’t settle down — who still can’t settle down.
You’ll ask me how my family is because they always did love you as much as you love them. There are still times they ask about you. I ask about yours because I loved them definitely more than they loved me. I was the wild one who caused them to momentarily question your sanity because your path was set out before you were even old enough to decide for yourself.
After a few more moments of small talk and me noticing the silver band on your left ring finger, we say goodbye. You pause — wondering if it’s appropriate to hug me, while I’ll already be leaning in. When our body makes contact for that brief moment, the rush of it all comes back, again.
But this is the difference. After all of this time, we’re both happier without each other. We always had a path that diverged but it doesn’t change that for a brief amount of time you were the only person in existence that mattered to me.
It’d be hard not to be nostalgic but after all this time, it’s water under the bridge.
