Before I Met You
Francis
His name was Francis.
He was French and I don't know why I ever dated him.
Maybe it was because of the way he called me his Italian,
how he mapped out the freckles on my body
like constellations;
maybe it was because of the way he knew how to
use his tongue just so.
Before we even knew it, three months running, it was over and done between us.
You ran into the ex you never quite got over.
I was never sure if I actually wanted to commit.
I call it a moment of weakness.
Gilbert
You were Francis' roommate.
We hooked up a lot,
though more often than not
due to the influence of alcohol.
You were in love with someone who didn't love you back.
You called yourself awesome a lot,
but in the middle of the night sometimes,
you would just lay there and stare at the ceiling.
Sometimes you would cry.
What was running through your head then?
Were you thinking of someone?
Was it him, or was it me?
Lars
We were both high on love as we were on weed.
I'm not going to lie, some of the best moments in my life,
I shared with you.
But following the rules of gravity,
what goes up must come down.
We must've been a damn special exemption,
because we didn't just come down.
We crashed and burned,
and baby, I knew it hurt you and me both.
Arthur
We met during spring break in Cancun.
You were a Harvard boy, and I had a
devastating weakness for British accents.
From a one-night stand, we managed to
drag it out for several more months.
At one point, you finally had enough and tried to
break it off with me through Facebook.
'I'm trying to be realistic,' you said.
Translation?
'My uptight parents don't know I'm gay,
but I'll never break it to them or to the girl
that I've been dating the past two years.'
I had no qualms about you leaving.
In the long run, you would only bring me down
and you gave bad head anyway.
I only feel bitter about it sometimes.
Sometimes.
Roderich
Your frugality drove me crazy,
but I loved the way you called me 'darling',
and the way you would kiss my forehead
every morning before you left for the studio.
But one day, it suddenly stopped.
You met Elizabeta, and she became
your new muse.
I found out about her while going through your texts,
while going over your sheet music.
An ethereal temptress she is.
To this day, I'm not sure if I
fell in love with you first,
or if I fell in love with your music.
I still hear you playing when I walk past Carnegie Hall.
Alfred
He was my all-American boy, the first person
I ever truly felt serious about.
But he wasn't serious—
at least, not as serious as I was.
We were still in high school, after all.
We had our whole lives in front of us.
We were still too young—
at least, that's what I tried to tell myself.
We broke up on mutual terms after finals week,
senior year. It cut me like a fucking knife.
We had breakup sex in the back of his Ford
before he left for college after graduation.
We couldn't stop crying, and we kept on
apologising to each other. But for what?
The inevitable? The fact that, no matter how
much we want it, some things just aren't
meant to be?
I guess I'll never know because I haven't heard from him since.
Emma
You were the first girl I ever dated.
The first person who ever made me feel like I could actually
mean something to someone.
But I didn't realise that until long after you left.
You said I didn't love you.
But I did, and I didn't realise it until it was
too late, too fucking late.
I should have treated you better, princess.
You deserve(d) better than someone like me.
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.
Sadik
I always knew you were one for rough sex,
so after the third or fourth night since
we first laid eyes on each other,
it didn't surprise me at all
when you wrapped your hands around my throat
under the dim lights of your SoHo apartment.
Kinky bastard.
By the time morning came, I was gone.
You never called.
I blocked your number.
Some things are better left off at that.
Antonio
After so many failed relationships, I was more than ready to give up on
the whole 'relationships' thing. Focus on myself, and shit.
But then I met you.
You were friends with Francis and Gilbert; best friends, even.
And if my history with the both of them didn't spell out
'T-R-O-U-B-L-E'
smack dab in the middle of my fucking forehead,
I don't know what will.
Yet still, you went for me anyways.
I was a fucking train wreck when we first met.
I just got out of a bad relationship,
something I personally felt responsible for ruining—
(cough, Emma, cough)—
and I didn't want to get into anything I would only fuck up.
And I always fucked things up.
But, dammit, were you insistent.
You were intent on actually fucking courting me,
buying me gifts, sending me cheesy Hallmark cards
and flowers straight to my office.
I couldn't understand it, let alone why.
In my angry confusion, I put up with it for a few more weeks
before I finally snapped. 'I fucked your roommates before,
doesn't that mean a fucking thing to you?'
And this is how I fuck things up.
For once, I saw reason to actually nip this thing right in the bud before it even had the chance to grow. Maybe you didn't know the history between Francis, Gilbert and I after all. Last thing I wanted to do was lead another person on.
To my surprise, however, you didn't react in the way I thought you'd react.
You didn't get angry at me; instead, your expression grew sombre.
'Of course I know,' you began, and I personally had to brace myself
for what was to come next. 'and it drives me crazy when I think about
all the people you've been with.'
You didn't stop there. After taking a breath, you continued,
'But have you ever thought of why it didn't work out with them
in the first place? Have you ever thought that, maybe, somehow,
that's fate's way of telling you that belong with someone else?
Someone like me?'
As much as I told myself not to buy into it,
not to trust you,
I still did.
Antonio II
You were Spanish, but you weren't from Mexico or from South America, no—
you were a full-blooded Spaniard, all passion and fire,
straight from the Mediterranean coast.
Even though you had a lot of Latino friends,
you couldn't always relate to them;
or sometimes, different words meant
different things to you.
Whenever one of your friends would tell a joke and you didn't get it, they would laugh.
It fucking pissed me off.
But you would shrug it off and smile.
You always smiled.
Antonio III & Emma II
You always wondered whatever the fuck it was he saw in you.
You weren't that special— hell, you never were.
But he was convinced otherwise for some reason.
And no matter how hard you tried not to feel anything for him,
the moment you felt your heart skip a beat when you saw him smile,
that was when you also realised that you were in some deep, deep shit.
You weren't ready for another relationship;
it was too sudden, too soon. You still needed to heal,
and your breakup with Emma hurt like a motherfucker.
It didn't just simply end,
not like it did with Francis.
It was drawn out over several months of her going cold on you,
and you wondering what you did wrong,
and trying your best to make up for what a shitty boyfriend you were,
but it was already too late.
You were still together, but Emma had moved on.
Still it wasn't easy for either of you to say goodbye.
Goodbyes were difficult, after all—
Especially when you still had that one sliver of hope
that someday, someday, she would take you back.
But that was before.
Antonio IV
Several months after realising I fell in love with you,
I finally caved in.
I caved in to the thought of you,
the idea of you,
the notion of you.
I caved in the moment you held me in your arms
the first time we slept together.
You held me close, and told me that you loved me
and that you would never leave me.
You kissed me when I said I loved you back,
and we clung to each other with a fervent desperation
like it was the last time we were ever gonna see each other again.
Antonio V
Dear Antonio,
Three years, six months, and thirteen days later,
we're still going strong.
Even though I've been with lots of other people before,
and I'm pretty sure you have too,
that doesn't matter now.
Because that was before.
Before I met you.