You Shouldn’t Have Let Me Taste You

I’ve got a very specific type: Hispanic male soccer player with a killer smile. I didn’t always know this about myself. Really, the type found me. So when I met you, a basketball-playing Indian guy with a shy smile…yeah, at most, I thought we would be good friends. I know you thought the same thing, too.

You enraptured me. You laughed with me, and loudly. You poked and you smirked and you made me crazy about you. In a matter of weeks, I leapt at the sound of my buzzing phone, hoping to see your name across the screen. And when it was, I grinned like a fool. Hell, I am a fool.

It’s not exactly a fairytale-start to meet a guy with a serious girlfriend. I should have known we couldn’t have worked out. You were the opposite of everything I’ve ever looked for, and most importantly, taken. Except you were the very thing I needed. I let my competitive nature get the best of me – I pursued you and you caught me doing so, but you didn’t stop me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed to meet you to discover the music that spoke to me, to understand the importance of being with someone who truly makes me laugh, and to learn the very harsh lesson that I can’t always get what I want.

Without meaning to, you became my favorite part of every day. Each time we parted ways, I immediately began counting down to the next time I could see you again. We communicated with our eyes. It was very hard to ignore a chemistry like ours once people began asking us when we would get married “already!” No one knew you had a girlfriend because a) she lived elsewhere, b) you never talked about her, and c) because you liked me even though you’ll never say it.

When you went home for the holidays, I prayed every day that you would end things with her and take the risk to be with me. Admittedly, it couldn’t be immediate…but I knew we had an unreal connection. I dreamt of being yours, introducing you to my family and travelling the world. I’m such a fool.

You returned in 2014 still with a girlfriend. That’s when I should’ve cut my losses and let it be, but I didn’t because I’ve never “lost.” And we poked and we prodded and then you kissed me and nothing was ever the same again. I fell in love with you. We made love and we sweated and you played with my hair and you cared for me and you held me and you listened to me and you made me cereal and you got me water and you lathered me with soap and you brushed your teeth next to me and you sipped coffee from my cup in the rain. And everyone knew but no one knew. And to this day you and I will forever be the only ones who know what’s happened between us the last two years. For someone I wasn’t dating, you reaped the benefits of my love and attention. You let me spike your hair in the shower, pet your adorably soft ears and kiss you before we slept at night. You let me taste you, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss those days.

I think the saddest moment of heartbreak is the very instance in which you can feel your heart slowly ripping at the seam within your very core…when you feel your heart actually breaking. When we said goodbye for the summer last year – I felt my heart just absolutely break. It broke that entire rainy Saturday. It broke after I dropped you off with your U-Haul. It broke while I drove in silence but for the sobs I uncontrollably let out. It broke when I spent the entire day in your big T-shirt and ordered pad thai from the place I can typically walk to even on my worst days. It broke during every morning and afternoon commute that summer, wondering what you were doing, what you were thinking, and what in the world I would need to do to get over you.

I’ve held your face in my hands, looked you straight in the eyes and told you, vulnerably, that I was crazy about you. I don’t regret saying that – I am true to myself and I have always been taught to share with others how I feel. But you’re a coward. Even if you never picked me, you certainly cannot pick her. We’ve both got skeletons in our closet, and I know I’m cashing in on my well-deserved bad karma now. You influenced my life and perspective so damn much, but I’ll likely never tell my future lover about you. You emotionally blue-balled me. How could you?

Our friendship has an expiration date and we both know it. Sadder than that realization is the harsh truth that our relationship – from our privately intimate moments to the nights spent publicly in the center of a dance circle – will result in a net-negative. I would have been better off never meeting you. And you, my doggy, would have lived a less complicated (albeit more linear) life if I had never entered it. It is a very sad thing.

You are wonderful but you are not perfect. I know that now. I am not innocent, but I am honest. I honestly thought we would work out because I thought the Universe looked out for things like this. How could something so right, so electric, so passionate and so raw just not work out? I’ll never get it, and I will always be sad we never had our chance. I hope you’ll always remember me.