To The Boy Who Was Too Afraid To Let Me Love Him Forever

Do you want to know the exact moment I knew I was in love with you? It was a rainy Saturday and we decided it was the perfect sort of day for an adventure. We got brunch and you insisted on ordering a root beer float because you’re a 12-year-old boy stuck inside a 25-year-old’s body. We laughed and held hands when we walked through the aquarium across the street. But the actual moment I knew? We were walking down a ramp near the jellyfish tank and when I went to walk ahead of you, you grabbed my arm and kissed me. That’s the exact moment that I knew I was in love with you.

At that point in time you had probably kissed me like that a million times. But for some reason, that’s the kiss that tipped me over the edge.

We left the aquarium and it was a torrential downpour. We turned the radio up on the car ride home, and we napped together while you rubbed my back, hoping to make my sugar-induced headache go away.

That was the day. That was the afternoon. That was the exact moment I realized I loved you.

And then things got hard. Things were bad at work and you pushed me away. That perfect afternoon seemed to matter less and less to you. I literally watched you pull away, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

You told me that you held me in the closest circle to your heart. Alongside your mom, your sister, your aunt. That we couldn’t end things because you couldn’t “handle it.” You sounded genuinely hopeful when you said we never knew what would happen in the future, and how if life threw us back together, that’s how we’d know it was meant to last. I was expected to gracefully deal with the weeks that were passing without seeing one another, and the texts that would go unanswered. I let my anxiety skyrocket in silence. I felt like any problem of mine was nothing compared to yours, and that voicing my unhappiness would push you further away from me.

I really thought I was going to love you forever. I caught myself getting lost in moments of embrace, thinking about how I couldn’t wait to wake up next to you every day.

My friends commented on how nice it was to see me so happy, and that you sounded like a hidden gem in this city that’s known for noncommittal party boys.

But I guess we’re not going to happen after all.

I hope you’re well. You deserve to be doing well. It kills me that I don’t know about the little things that happen to you on the daily anymore, or get pictures of your dogs being silly at obscure hours of the night.

Maybe “we’ll” exist at some point in the future just like you said. But until then, I just wanted you to know: I was going to love you forever. And thank you for the day with the root beer floats and the aquarium. That was my favorite day since moving to this city, too.