What If I Told You I Missed You

What if I told you I missed you?

What if instead of texting you about Star Wars and bourbon and how to change the batteries in my smoke detector I just said, “I wish you were here.” What if instead of sending you selfies with people who knew us when and pretending like I didn’t wish you hadn’t bailed on driving 8 hours my way I was honest for one split second? What if instead of telling you “I hate you” I said “Maybe I only hate any girl I see you with who isn’t me.”

What if…

What if I told you I missed you?

And I told you that I haven’t cried as hard as I did than when I drove away in that giant truck on a highway past mountains, and rivers, into a city I knew nothing about. And I didn’t wash my pillowcases for two weeks because I could pretend I could still smell you on them. And I pretended to be freaked out when you got drunk on my birthday and kissed me with whiskey breath and told me that you loved me even though we’d never said it when there wasn’t something like booze and maybes between us.

What if instead of saying nothing, I said everything?

What if…

What if I told you I missed you?

And then you told me that you’ve got somebody new now and I am nothing but a distant memory and I have to actually to move on? And I said, “I never really cared that much anyway,” because I knew that was what you expected to hear. And we never talked about the space in between where there was an “us” that never fully formulated.

What if…

What if I told you I miss you?

And instead of telling me that you have someone new, you just replied. Instead of showing me where I should be, you said hello. Instead of gesturing to a life we didn’t have, you said “hi.”

What if…

But like…really…

What if I told you I missed you?

What then?