You Always Text Me When I’m Almost Over You

I think about you when I least expect it.

Chewing spearmint gum, singing along to Andrew Bird or eating sushi. I think of your smile and the way you’d always try to hold my hand. I remember driving, windows down, my hair flying, laughing as you signed my yearbook with a single heart.

I think about sneaking out of your house early in the morning, before your parents woke up, hoping the creaking floorboards and laughter wouldn’t make them stir.

I think about secrets whispered, and confessions revealed. I remember meeting in the beach parking lot late at night, kissing in the dark, thinking I had our future mapped out, convinced we were forever. I remember when you said I love you and I made you say it twice, just in case I’d misheard.

I remember lying next to you thinking this is it. Hoping that I could be enough.

And you told me I was. Convinced me that I was it for you.

But then I lost you. And in a blink of an eye you were gone. As quickly as you entered my life, you exited. And I deserved it.

I think about how awful I was. How I would push you away, make you jealous or test your will to stay. I never felt good enough for you. I needed your affirmation that I was what you wanted. I needed you to pull me out of the darkness.

And now it’s been years.

You have a whole new life I know nothing about with friends and stories and adventures that I wasn’t a part of. And I sit and wonder why you still cross my mind because I should be over this, and yet it always comes back to you.

Are you sleeping alone? Is that brunette your girlfriend? Is she better than me? Do you love her? Did you love the others?

I’ve watched you date and break up and date and break up. I’ve tracked your Facebook, looking for signs that you’re single, or taken; serious or casual. I try to put the puzzle pieces of your life together to get a clear picture of who you are now, what you like, what you do, what makes you happy.

I obsess and obsess and then something snaps, and my life moves on.

I think about you less. I don’t wonder what you’re doing. I start to live. I exist outside of our bubble. I move on.

And then you always do the same thing.

You text me when you’re single. When I’ve started to become myself again, no longer intertwined with your new life. No longer pining for you.

And you text me just to keep your hooks in me. Just to keep me wondering. Just to make sure I can’t quite get rid of you.

So here I am.

Years later, and wondering when I’ll quit you.