Confessions of An Ex Factor

You’re the kind of guy that could make something as simple as crossing the street sound like a phenomenon that everyone was missing out on. A smooth talking stoner in an Abercrombie hoodie, you spoke in cryptic messages our first summer meeting and smirked while we talked about Nujabes and drank sangria on stone steps.  I swore I’d never fall for someone like you, gorgeous be damned.

Maybe it was the way your eyes lit up when you told a story, your hands moving and your attention locked solely on me in a crowded space. Or maybe it was the fact that you took my lifeless guitar, tuned it like clockwork, and made melodies that had my brothers begging you to come back. Nevertheless, I ended up spell-bound and in no time at all your hand felt like it had always been weaved with mine. My stories turned into love anthems, my guitar rattled in my attempts to make you a song, and your ringtone going off at night sent energy from my fingertips to my toes. Dinners together felt magical, even if they were just sandwiches. Your kiss, no matter how light, kept me clinging and pulling you back through the door, regardless of curfew.

My husband without a ring, my partner in crime; I’d never been more happy to tell people we belonged to each other. You swirled through every aspect of my life and regardless of that one bad quality you had, I shared anything and everything I could think of with you. I went back north reluctantly, cried alone in my car on the last night with you for what would feel like forever, and for the next few months yearned your hand and struggled with not being near enough to provide a shoulder to lean on for the rough moments you were facing.

I won’t say you mainly broke my heart. Timing and mileage was a thirty-percent and twenty-perfect factor, respectively (At least I tell myself that to feel better). You slipped through my fingers and I tried to hold the rope that tied us together close, but there are some things that are just out of our control. You weren’t bad to me like other guys I’ve heard about. You’ve never abused me in any aspect. But the stone wall that you held in place was hard to break down with just a plastic hammer. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t do much. I snuck home when I shouldn’t had. I wrote a book for you, even. But in the end I lost it. I lost you. I called it quits, worn and teary-eyed and hoped that we could help each other until the time was right where we would be together smoothly.

I spent the next year drunk, calling you every moment I could to say I loved you more than I could comprehend but never saying I wanted to be your girl again. No matter how much I wanted to scream it every phone call, my pride was too strong. I cried in showers and swang in hammocks in silence. I dove into my studies to forget, though I’d stare at your picture when my friends weren’t around to lecture me. And somewhere along the way, I thought I was over it and I’d be okay. But, I still can’t help but miss you. I still worry about you more than I should. I still want to watch movies again.

I’ll probably always regret my decision and though the intensity that I felt for you has dwindled down to friendly terms, I still have moments where I yearn for you. They’re as fast as they come, but they rock my core all the same and, sometimes, I hide under my blankets until the emotion sinks into the mattress and leaves my skin.

You probably have a girlfriend by now--you’re too charming to not have girls flocking for you--and the idea makes my stomach drop, no matter how I know you deserve someone as special as you are. She’ll give you all the things I couldn’t when our roller-coaster ride ended. You’ll give her all the things you can muster up, even though sometimes it’ll be hard for you. Maybe one day we’ll sit down for drinks and we’ll toast to your newest girlfriend, or your wedding even, and bask in success and how silly everything in the past was.

In the end, I guess I just want you to be happy. That’s what selfless love is about, right?

ZM.