The Moments I Wish You Were Here

By

I never was supposed to have feelings for someone like you, yet I did.

When the chapter closed and our time abruptly came to an end, I found myself missing you in waves—like the moon waxing and waning, like the sun rhythmically dipping below the horizon and rising the next day. I shift erratically from feeling lost without you, to feeling okay, back to feeling lost again. The feeling is all too strangely familiar, reminding me of previous heartbreaks, yet this time it’s different.

No one knows about the thoughts of you on my mind or all the reasons why I wish you were here with me. Even I can’t fully understand my own feelings or the reasons behind them.

I distract myself to forget you. I intentionally go back to all the places we went to just to overwrite the memories that include you. Those memories, tinted with the warmth of the summer sun, are just too painful for me to remember now. All the bright days and hazy nights we spent together felt like a lie. You played your games and used your charm, and I was a fool.

As I walk down the cobblestone sidewalk, the evening sunlight filtering through the trees and illuminating the pub we went to some months ago, I can still see you walking beside me. I can still hear your voice and your laughter in my head, I can still remember what we were talking about as we walked down this very same street.

The bar is packed, end of July, a Saturday night. Everyone is here tonight, and they’re all laughing, but I feel my thoughts drifting to you. You were supposed to be here tonight. You were supposed to be sitting next to me, bottoms up, celebrating this day.

I look over to the corner where we sat by the brick wall, the night we recklessly stayed out downtown until 4 a.m., drinking tequila cocktails and laughing about life. I remember the flickering candlelight and the faded music in the background all too well, you complimenting the outfit I had carefully picked out the day before and the strangely comforting sense of ease I had around you from the very start. If only I could go back to a month ago and fix everything, you’d be here right now.

I drive down the road at 11 p.m., the road we drove down with the windows rolled down, belting out our favorite songs. As the yellow streetlight floods into my car, I’m the only one sitting at the red light on an empty road, and all I can think about is you riding shotgun next to me. It’s the moments that I least expect to remember that haunt me the most, and the very thought of having lost you for good tears me apart.

I wonder whether if across the water, you’re looking out your window at night to where I am and wonder what I’m doing too. I wonder if you think back to all those moments and simultaneously wish you could keep them and erase them. I wonder if just maybe you stopped lying to yourself and admitted there was truly something between us. 

I ponder why I felt this way towards you when you love another. Wrong timing, wrong circumstances, maybe you were the one that got away—it puts me at a loss. All I know is that all these moments I wish you were here, all these moments we shared together, are moments I have to let go.

Now, it’s time to forgive myself and move on.