There are times when I look back on things. I reserve thoughts of our past to those nights when I find myself unable to sleep. The sheets stick to me like all my regrets, and as much as I toss and turn, I am unable to free myself from their grip. I finally stop thrashing around in the bed and the sobs rack my chest until it hurts. Those are the times, when I can do nothing to escape them… those are the times I allow myself to think of her. I try not to remember the bad parts. I try to ignore the thoughts that plague me, how I fucked things up, how I ran out of chances…how I ruined up the best thing that ever happened to me.
I stopped blaming her. I did that a while ago. I finally stopped hating her long enough to reason out the causes of our demise. And when I recall all of them…they're all my fault. Every single one of them. There's nothing I can do. I can't forgive myself for what happened, what I did, who I hurt. I can't. I'm not allowed to.
I just lie awake, staring up at my ceiling, and I think of all those moments we shared, the really good ones. There are sometimes in life where everything is just…so perfect. And when those moments happen, they are seared into your memory forever. No matter how many other things happen in that span that you are together, when you reminisce, you always seem to come back to those moments. The moments where your breath was in sync with each other. You could just sense the connectedness of your breathing patterns, watching her chest rise and fall from across the bed. You remember the way her hair smelled, how it smelled that moment. The smell of her hair is the kind of thing that plagues you the most in your every day life. Regardless of whether or not you want to recall the details of your failed romance, things like—the smell of her hair always brings back memories always. I can recall one time, away at college, walking to class when from out of nowhere I could smell her hair. The scent was forever etched into my brain, the same as her eye color, or what she wore on a specific night. I stopped dead in my tracks and the scent passed then. I knew she was nowhere in the vicinity. Its times like those that I think fate is just fucking with me, punishing more for the mistakes made.
Things ended. I could hardly expect high school relationships to last for always. That's a foolish idea. The thought always seems so attractive though. I can remember lying in her arms one night, the air cool and I could only smell her hair. She leaned into my ear and spoke of being together forever. And I could imagine nothing else. That's all I wanted. However, high school also means immaturity. Eventually, the bad outweighed the good. We got into a routine: she nagged at me and I fucked up as always. I slipped into old habits like drinking and partying too much. She would find out about my wild nights and I would beg and plead to be taken back again. It was an endless cycle. Finally one day, things ended. I wish now that I could have realized what a catch she was before I lost her for good. Its amazing the clarity one has to look back and realize mistakes, changes that could have been made to fix things that didn't seem apparent at the time.
She ended things and I couldn't pretend I didn't know why. She looked at me from the edge of my bed, her eyes pleading. I knew she didn't want to do this anymore than I did, but we couldn't keep up this cycle. We couldn't. She began sobbing and I couldn't pretend to not know why. She turned to me, tears in her blue eyes.
"This isn't working." She said slowly, wiping tears that fell down her check, leaving salty streaks. I just sat there. I wish I had said something to change her mind. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish I hadn't cheated, I wish I hadn't taken her for granted, I wish I wouldn't have pressured her into things she didn't want to do. She watched for my reaction and when I just lowered my head, she went on.
"This is killing me. I can't keep lying to myself thinking that things are going to go back to the way they were in the beginning. I can't keep overlooking all your faults…I can't keep worrying about you when you don't call…" she sobbed. By this time, I was starting to taste vomit in my mouth, slowly realizing the magnitude of the situation. "This is for the best. We can make a clean break and get on with our lives." She stood up. I wish now I would have gone to her, promised to change, but I didn't. I took a deep breath and pull my knees to my chest, burying my head. I hear the door open and then shut. That was it. She was gone.
The next few weeks were hard. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to tell her this was stupid. I didn't. I pretended I didn't hurt. I pretended we could still be friends. I pretended we hadn't just spent the last eight months of our lives together. I knew it was killing her as much as it was killing me, but I didn't care. If she wanted me back, she knew where I was. She never came though. She never wanted me back.
By this time in my thought process, I'm practically crawling out of my skin, so hurt from remembering things. I get up from bed and pace. Eventually, I'll lie back down and the memories consume me again. The things that hurt the most are the little things. Seeing her interact with other people, other girls. Watching her flirt with a cute girl at a club. Having the smell of her shampoo eventually fade out of my pillows. Having her come back to me and ask me for her things back, her favorite shirt, that one CD. Having to give all those things back, reminders that I fucked this up. The worst thing is that after a while…I began to forget how she kissed. I gradually lost the little details, like how she ran her tongue along my lower lip, or the slight moans she made as she tugged on my lower lip…what she tasted like. I would spent hours trying to sear those memories into my brain…and then the details got foggier and foggier until finally, I'm left with a fleeting memory with blurred details and a vague remembrance. That is what hurt the most…knowing someone else knew how she kissed and I didn't now. That was the thing that really hurt the most, the detail that would cause me to finally break down and sob.
I've seen her once since graduation. It was when we were both in our mid-twenties. We didn't keep in touch through college. Sometimes I would receive a Christmas card or something from her dad, where he would scribble in some non-consequential detail like "she's doing great" or "got a new job in San Francisco." Those were the only updates I got and I didn't have the right to ask for any more.
I was walking down the street in West Hollywood once, going to a job interview. I was looking at directions I had scribbled down hastily, trying to find the place. I looked up and across the street at a small café. She was sitting there with someone else. I didn't even look at who she was with, I only noticed she was happy. She was holding hands and was leaned across the table, her eyes shining at whom she was with. She giggled for a moment, her smile breaking out across her face. I just stood in awe and watched her. She picked up her hand and I could see the sparkle of what appeared to be an engagement ring on her finger. My heart broke in my chest, causing harsh sobs to emerge from my mouth. She just kept on laughing, and leaned over, kissing the other person lightly and chuckling. I used to make her smile like that, I couldn't help but thinking. That could have been me, with her, going to marry her, making her happy, making her laugh, making her smile, completely in love and enamored. Completely happy to be with her. And then it truly dawned on me how much I'd given up, how much I'd lost. I could have been happy instead of the miserable fuck that I was now. I could have made her happy and instead, I threw it away. My regrets swarmed around my head and my stomach churned. I took one more look at the girl I let go. I wanted to be that person with her. More importantly, at that second, I wanted to walk over there and knock out her fiancée's teeth. I wanted to pound their fucking face into the ground and then turn to her, taking her hand in mine and lead her away from there. But it wasn't my right anymore. I could hold no claim to her. She was someone else's. With a heavy heart and a million regrets, I managed to walk away.
When that memory ends in my brain, I am finally done with my nightly torture. It's a too frequent routine and often times, my regrets fade into my dreams, bringing nightmares with them. It's only fair that for as much pain as I caused her, that I am forced to deal with the aftermath awake and asleep. I'll get up and get a drink of water then, wipe the tears from my face, peer into my bathroom mirror. I swear I'll be a better person. I promise myself that things will get easier. But it's been years and its not getting any better. I shake that thought from my head. I look at my face in the mirror then with disgust. I've created the hell I live in…and now I have to deal with it. For as long as it takes to get over the only girl that ever mattered… the one that got away.