"Drinkin' old cheap bottles of wine
Sit talkin' up all night
Saying things we haven't for a while
We're smiling but we're close to tears
Even after all these years
We just now got the feeling that we're meeting
for the first time."
- The Script

I like to imagine our future selves meeting again someday. Like there’s this deep and distant part of my body that is holding on to the belief that you and I just didn’t happen at the right time. That there’s going to be a day when you just realize that I was the one for you all along. That you’ll come back for me.

It might be wrong of me to think this way. After all, it couldn’t possibly be fair to all those I’ll learn to love between now and that day you come to this realization. I’m sure I’ll fall in love with others. I already have. But inside I know it isn’t fair to him. I’m still holding on to an irrational hope. I’m still hoping for us.

You really don’t forget your first love, do you? The person who taught you so much about relationships and life and feelings and yourself and what makes you laugh and cry and what makes you fall absolutely more and more in love with every passing day. So much of that person is engraved in you. It only seems to fade until one day you find everything to still be exactly how it was. It only takes a text message. A phone call. An accidental run in. It’s not hard for everything to come back. It’s not hard for a reason, right? That’s what I like to believe.

Because there must be a reason why I’m still in love with you. You broke my heart over a year ago and I found love and comfort elsewhere in someone who loves me more than I could ever imagine for myself at such a young age. I love him, but not like I loved you. I loved you past the point of sanity. I didn’t just want you, I desperately needed you. Your laugh eased my worries, your touch made me high. I can never shake that feeling away. You are an essential part of my being.

Even if another time for us never comes, even if someone new captivates you in a way that I never could, this fondness won’t escape me. I’ll learn to bury it day by day, but it will exist nonetheless. And that will be okay. Because if someone new makes you feel the way I feel about you, intoxicates you like a Saturday night, that will be enough.