I’ve been trying for a while to write something about you. About the love we had, about the time we shared, about how I was shattered into pieces when you left me and still struggle to put myself back together again up to today.

It’s been a tough time trying to find the words to express all the emotions I’ve been going through since the day I last felt your heartbeat through your chest during our last hug, the last day your hands were intertwined with mine, the very last day I looked into your green eyes as we said goodbye at the train station in Paris. Before that, we were in your car arguing because you said it was starting to snow but I thought it was only rain. It turns out you were right; the very minute we were about to separate, snow started to fall heavily and, in a split second, everything around us started to turn white. Like a blank canvas. Like all the art we made together was just about to be wiped clean.

You came into my life when I wasn’t looking. People always say that the best things come to you when you’re not searching. What they don’t say though is that sometimes, these things don’t last. I remember telling you on our last night together that if I had a superpower, it would be the ability to keep every single detail of a memory in a capsule, to be able to open that capsule anytime I want and to relive the memory. In that capsule, I’d find all the things I never want to forget about you: the soft sound of your voice, the feel of your touch, the time I fell asleep on your chest in the beginning of a movie that you stayed awake to finish and didn’t move a single time as to not wake me up, the intensity of your laugh when I laid on your bed and hit my head on my laptop that was hidden under your blanket, the taste of the dishes you’d cook for me every day, the time we used up all the hot water because we were under the shower hugging for too long, how you’d make fun of me to my sister whenever we were on the phone and she’d interrupt, or that night we were stuck at your best friend’s house because of the curfew and you came to me and asked for my hand because you wanted us to dance.

I don’t want to forget any of that.

I don’t want to forget the time you called me to introduce me to your step-mother, who was an angel, and how you told me that you didn’t deserve me because I was the most perfect, the most beautiful girl you’ve ever met. You said those things in a way that was so convincing that for once in my life, I didn’t feel a single bit insecure about myself around someone. I could look like I hadn’t slept for days and not a single thought about how I look in your eyes would’ve run through my mind, because I’d know that no matter what, I was beautiful to you and I felt as such.

But I couldn’t keep you. I couldn’t keep those moments, I couldn’t take them all and squeeze them into a box to hold onto for the rest of my life. I’ve tried to paint a few of them, like that night we were by the window smoking a cigarette and thought we were seeing northern lights because the sky was partially green, even though it could’ve really just been bright lights from a park or a stadium nearby. But even the paintings didn’t do them justice.

See, I can’t keep these moments, and it’s frustrating me because I’m bound to forget. And I don’t want to forget. I want to have you with me every day, every night. I want to be there for every fight we could have had, for every apology after those fights, for every good morning and good night.

How can someone so determined to have something move on from it knowing it was something that could have been so beautiful? How can I move on when I know we could have had it all? How can they just tell me to forget you when I don’t want to? I break my heart every day holding on to something that might never happen. I am the fool, I know. But I miss you.

I miss you and nothing else matters anymore. I miss you and I can’t sleep at night because I keep waiting for you to come back, even if it’s just a text, even if it’s just a call, even if it’s hoping you will show up at our doorstep to tell me that you regret ever saying goodbye and that it’s been hurting you as much as it has been hurting me too.

But you don’t miss me, and it doesn’t hurt you. Or maybe it does but you’re too proud to tell me. Can’t you just let me know? I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to let go. My body mentally and physically won’t let me let you go.

It longs for you, it wants you — I want you.

Just come back to me. We didn’t have enough reason to say goodbye; we can still go back and try again. Just give us one last try.

My heart is still awfully, deeply in love with you. It won’t let go. My love, I miss you and words still aren’t enough to express the stinging pain.

I would do just about anything and everything to hear you say “hello” to me again — a “hello” that won’t have to end in a goodbye anymore.