You’ll Always Be My Unfinished Business

When we first fell apart, I held onto hope. I spent months holding my breath as I drove home, hoping that when I turned the corner I would spot your car outside my place. I vividly imagined seeing you, sitting there on my front steps, waiting on me, ready to talk it all out. We’d work through our issues and we would spill our hearts out until it hurt. I planned on staying up late into the night, sharing a bottle of wine and mapping out what the future would look like.

I waited so patiently. I hoped and I prayed that you would be there. Which is saying a lot since you know I’m not the praying kind.

I prayed for you, though.

I always hoped for that big gesture, that final verification, something that showed me you wanted me. It never came.

You never showed up. You knew how to find me, and you never came.

Perhaps that should have been a sign that we were not meant to be. Maybe it should still be a sign. I’ve never been good at letting go and letting go of you has been no exception.

You see, so much has happened between then and now. So much has been shattered. Too many punches thrown and too many stitches placed on broken hearts.

I’m not even sure we could go back if we tried. That doesn’t stop me from wondering. My fantasies have now turned to running into you at a bar. Both of us angry, both of us hesitant, yet somehow drawn to one another. We sit, and we have a drink, politely and honestly speaking about all that has happened. Not with expectation or change in our hearts – but simply to speak about it in a way that we never have. Truthfully, without hesitation, and face-to-face.

We both said some terrible, hurtful things. I should never want to see or hear from you again. I find that you make small appearances in my dreams and I wake with a punch to the gut. The sinking feeling that you have given me for so many years. No matter the context of the dream, I always wake up hurt.

Yet, here I am, years of hurt later, and every time my phone rings I hope it’s you. Every ping notifying me of a late-night email, catches my breath in the painful expectation that just maybe you’re reaching out to say;

‘Hey, it’s me. I miss you.’

It’s so twisted. The logic.

I never want to hear from you again – yet I so desperately hope you reach out.

I’m not sure what that means.

I’m not sure that I will ever know.

We’ll always be the eternal ‘What If’.

The almost, but not quite.

The maybe we could have been.

The unfinished business in the back of my mind.

The story I could never finish.

The problem I could never solve.

The constant frustration to a mind that likes clean breaks.

Maybe I’ll spend my life trying to find that missing piece to our puzzle.

I’ll still go about my days as if you never existed. I’ll pretend your name never passed through my lips. I’ll do my best to try to forget you.

I’m just not sure I’ll ever lose that skip in my chest every time my phone rings.