Two years, four months, three weeks and two days. That's how long it took me to get here. That's how long it took me to sit here in this long and forgotten diner, where I nursed more than one coffee to clear my mind. That's how long it took me to realize where I stood in life and more importantly didn't stand. To finally take a step I needed to make such a long time ago. To undo errors of the past and redo the corrections.

Two years, four months, three weeks and two days is how long it took me to search you, even though you've never really left. That's the amount of time I needed to come up and meet you just like old times. Only it isn't like old times. Because we aren't laughing effortlessly like we once did and the silence that's enveloping us is not comfortable. It isn't, because I'm finally telling you something I've never really told you before. I'm saying things with my eyes, that you have never had the chance to perceive. So many times I should've told you, so many occasions you deserved that little confession. Even if it wasn't said out loud. You were perfectly content with a barely there gesture that told you just how sorry I really was. You never urged me to say it, even if it was the least you deserved. I never said it, and I'm stilling not saying it. But I'm letting you know, in my on way.

And you're accepting it so effortlessly, in your own. Just like that. As if it's the most ordinary thing to do. But it isn't. For you, though, it is. And it's gestures like that made me fall in love with you in the first place.

The funny thing is that, you have no idea just how lovely you are.

You sit there in front of me, eyes fixated on the salt and peppershaker and hands nervously shredding a napkin into tiny pieces probably wondering why I suddenly decided to show up again. All I'm wondering about is how could possibly answer that question if I was confronted with it.

My time apart was filled with nights of restlessness and unfamiliar beds. Days of fulfilling expectations and perfected roles. Months of random hook-ups and perpetual loneliness. Two years, four months, three weeks and two days without you is what urged this desire in me. The craving to finally find you again. To just have you there in front me with those once so familiar deep chocolate eyes that somehow never left my mind. Mesmerizing me into telling you just how much I needed you. Tricking me into confessing you how much I still need you.

Reproaching me that I was the one who caused the tears to fall down on your face. That I was the one who made your already fragile heart break into a thousand pieces. Concluding that I was the one who set you completely apart.

I wish we could just pick up where we once left. I want to go back to our midnight phone calls where you'd whisper all of your secrets into the night, knowing that you could trust me with them. I miss the times when you wouldn't hesitate on choosing the person you'd nurse all of your questions with. Sometimes, I wonder if it really is possible. To just turn back time. To save all those moments that we wasted on not being together. My mind tells me that no such thing can happen, but my heart assures me that anything is possible if I just want it bad enough. And I do. I want it so bad it hurts. And I know that you want the same thing. Because I know it's not that you cannot look in my eyes, it's just that you don't know what might happen if you do. You don't trust you reaction, like I didn't trust for a long time. But I'm tired of running and avoiding.

All I want is to go back to the start.

I remember when it all started falling apart. The one fight too many. Those extra few words that should've never been uttered. I remember when we just didn't know what to do anymore. How to act or not act. Not strong enough to stay together nor leave the other. The endless circles we kept running in. Unable to find the right turn at the right time. And it was those uncertainties that ruined me and eventually us. It all became too much and my heart wasn't able to make any logical decisions anymore. Because when it came to you, when it came to us, everything was perfectly illogical. None of it made sense and for so long it was all I craved. Until the whispers became louder and the expectations became heavier. Everything that didn't matter became significant and the only thing that did matter became irrelevant.

The choice I made wasn't one I made with the beat of my heart or the thought of my mind. I always considered us a consequence of fate, so I let that same fate decide the future of us. The day I made my choice, fate was buried deep inside my pocket. Fate came in the form of a lone shiny quarter. Eventually that quarter was flipped and swiveled endlessly into the air, landing right in front of my feet. It took me more than an hour to finally look at that piece of change that was going to modify my life dramatically.

Heads.

I left town the same week.

You've stopped the shredding and you're now enthralled with your own fingers. You always fiddled when you were nervous, but it meant that you were not trying to escape from the situation anymore. You wanted - you want to tackle it, but don't really know were or how to start. I don't think I can either. When I look back, everything somehow blurs into the next thing. But there were some moments, some actions that simply stood out.

People were warning us at all times. Whether they were our friends, families or complete strangers, each one of them was telling us in their own way that we were way over our heads. That all of this would backfire eventually. Not one of them told us that it was going to be as easy as we presumed. As we hoped. Because we still were those naïve girls who thought that love was all we needed. And when their expectations were finally fulfilled they did not gloat or flaunt with their rightful predictions. They were saddened and thought what a shame it was we had to part. Because we gave them hope. We gave them something to root for even if their words and actions said otherwise. If we somehow defied all of the odds, if somehow we survived all of the catches that were thrown our way, than maybe they could've finally started believing in something they lost fate in a long time ago.

Nobody said that our time together would be easy, but nobody said our time apart would this hard either.

So let's ends this mutual hurt and try and defy those odds again. Let's try and be those teenagers that we once were, when all we needed was our breath mingling with one another.

So I ask you, to just take me back to the start.

Your gazing out of the window, watching nothing in particular as the parking-lot is practically deserted at this time of the night. Your face, that I once read so well, is practically emotionless. It's then that I notice a few wrinkles on your forehead that weren't present before. And the first thing I wonder is whether more wrinkles will be discovered once you smile. The second thing I wonder is if I'll ever get the chance to actually see you smile again.

I know that I cannot just come up here and demand something so big from you two years, four months, three weeks and two days after leaving you behind crying and begging me to stay while clinging to my legs. I know that you're hesitant to let me back in your life after what I've done. I kept wanting to define us and to somehow solve us using reason and science. Most of the times I was just guessing at numbers and figures. Other times I was pulling the puzzles of our lives and connection between them piece by piece apart. Analyzing them to no end. What I didn't anticipate was that by the time I had to reconstruct it, the pieces didn't fit anymore. The damage I had done was too great and any resolve I had left in me, drowned helplessly in the mass of those damaged parts.

So I gave up.

But two years, four months, three weeks and two days later I finally realize that all of those analyses and scientific reasoning didn't matter one bit. Because those questions of science and progress don't speak as loud as my heart.

What I feel for you is not based on textbook theories. My devotion for you has nothing to do with Shakespeare's take on romanticism. The increasing beat of my heart in your presence has nothing to do with the anatomy of the human body. What you are to me, can simply not be defined.

So all I'm asking you is to tell me you love me again. Because for the past few months it was the prospect of hearing those words uttered by you again that kept me sane. It's the thought of you coming back to me or me coming back to you, that kept my belief in life and all that comes with it alive. It's my yearning for your presence at all times that made my fear of flying seem so trivial and hop in the first plane (that day and in my life altogether) I found. I want nothing but to rush to the start and resume running all the circles we once ran and chase all the tails we once chased and simply come back together as we are. Because those moments that bothered me so much at the time, those instants where nothing seemed to work and everything seemed to fail is what I crave right now. Those moments formed barely there fragments in the happiness we shared. They were the flaws that we needed to survive. The rough patches we needed to work through to get where we are today.

The defections that made us the perfectly imperfect pair.

Your eyes shyly and hesitantly find mine and we both have to get used to the intensity of ones eyes. But it doesn't take long before we're transferred back to the time when one word, one touch, one look was enough to make ourselves clear to each other. To say things that could never be said in words. Your hand slides slowly over the cool surface of the table, eyes never leaving mine, afraid that if you move one fraction to fast that the trance we're in will be forever ruined. And when your hand ultimately reaches mine, you hesitantly let your little finger touch my own rediscovering it's softness all over again. Eventually, the timid strokes end as I bravely hook mine with yours. Taking the first step into unifying our heart and souls once again.

Two years, four months, three weeks and two days. That's how long it took us to sit here in this forgotten diner, lose ourselves in ones eyes and hook one little finger with the other. That's how long it took us to give the defiers hope they thought they'd never get.

That's how long it took us to, finally, get back to the start.