When We Were

by Diana Elliot Graham

like answering rhetorical questions. I think that if I answer rhetorical questions with the same sarcasm in their delivery, maybe people will stop asking them and instead ask something useful.

The Commons has become the default hang out. The Central Perk to our group. Just less coffee, more beer.

i will always highlight a friends reference

“Come again?” “Only if you ask nicely, Miami.” I shake my head, dismissing the innuendo.

“I won’t need to keep score to know if I’ve won, because if I walk away from this table knowing you more than I do now, it won’t matter how many points I have.”

Two coffees waiting. And he didn’t disappoint. I saw him and wondered if he ever could.

“Because I keep thinking the only man’s shirt you should be wearing is mine.”

He sees Josh, just a couple feet away, and without hesitation steps towards him to make the first move. “Good to see you again.” He offers him his hand, a repeat gesture from their first introduction, and while Josh accepts the handshake, he cuts his glare to me. Something I can tell Reid notes by the way his hand strengthens against my back, but he says nothing.

A sprinkling of freckles across it, he marks them with his mouth before settling me on my feet, planting a gentle punctuated kiss on my lips, another comma, a pause before what’s to come.

He was not demanding it like it was owed to him, but something he knew was not as easy as most of the male population assumed it to be.

There’s an actual comforter, clean striped sheets that are not the standard navy sheets of every college-aged man, there’s more than one pillow, and all have matching pillowcases. If I thought the Brita filter was impressive, this makes him practically a unicorn.

“You called my mom.” Not a question, but there’s something about needing your mom when you’re sick, doctor or not, and he called her.

“It was just the flu.” “You’ve been sick? And you’re alright now? I thought you just needed some time because you had a busy week. You could have called me. I know this is a new thing between us, but I hope you know you can call me if you need something. I’d prefer to have known what was going on, rather than you just canceling our date.”

“Then what are you trying to figure out, Arden? Because it feels like I jumped in while you are testing the water.”

“Sure, everyone wants to be Uptown Girl, but Vienna? Vienna is beautiful in a way that makes you think about your life.”

We just flowed so easily. He made it feel so easy. Made me feel at ease.

I woke up the morning after to find I-LOVE-YOU written in scrabble tiles, and it was clear, whenever he thought it, he just said it.

And you seem really happy, but he would shatter that happiness in a goddamn second if it meant he was the one who could put it back together. If it meant he could have you.”

“Hi, Reid.” “Arden.” “You’re early.” “What can I say, AB. Old habits.”

I may not have kept any of the physical mementos from our time together, but in some ways, I always kept him.

“You should know what you can do to a man’s heart.” His speech is slurred. “Since when did you get a heart?” I laughed. “Don’t say that, when you’re the only one who’s seen it.”

I’ve known you were a lot of things, but I never thought stupid was one of them.”

“The first guy to pay me any attention here was you, and right now it sounds like that’s your problem. Not who’s in my bed, but that I’m no longer spending nights in yours.”

“Great, so now I don’t know what I think? I don’t know my own mind? When did you become the sole arbiter of truth? Because from where I’m standing, Reid, it looks like I fit myself into your life. And now what? It was always going to be over when you graduate.”

“You think I forced you into my life? No, Arden. Some things aren’t that complicated.”

“I’m not going to have a girlfriend that I fight with in public, so lower your voice and let’s go home.” “No, that’s your home, not mine.”

Could this man who I thought loved me so completely, so easily unlove me? From day one everything was so black and white. Like he could easily flip a switch. And it looks like finally he flipped it back.

I need just a bit more of him before I close the chapter altogether. I need to know it wasn’t always this. I don’t want the book to end, but if it has to, I at least want an epilogue.

And all I can think is please, don’t let go. Not realizing that I’ve said it out loud until she responds.

He pulls away from our last kiss, planting one more quick kiss to my lips like he always did. Like a period at the end of the sentence. The last sentence of our book. The final chapter was written last night.

“She spent the night there. She was with him.” Of course she was. Just as he fucking intended. I never trusted their dynamic, but I trusted her. I’m a fucking fool.

But that’s the problem, I don’t want to be okay, because that means it’s really over.

“Who are you calling?” He slips the phone from my hand, not that I have a good grip on it anyway, and laughs when he looks at the screen. Sliding it into his back pocket with a shake of his head. “Come on, Arden–it’s time to go.”

Knowing that it wasn’t my friendship he valued, but the idea of me. As something he could have. As something he could collect. He was right, how could I be so stupid.

“It’s okay, I know you. I have you. I’ll take care of you.” My hand falls from the doorknob. A sign of surrender to this moment.

Because of what I do remember, I’m heartbroken, and what I don’t, I never want to.

The irony that this time last week I showed up collapsed on Josh’s front door. This morning I ran from it.

“You were so heartbroken over some guy who never deserved you. You said you didn’t want a relationship and I settled for your friendship, and then I watched you fall in love with him. I watched you fall in love with him while I fell in love with you.

When he loses himself, he loses what I came here for. Control.

I replaced the empty memory with this one. This one, where I decide who has access to me. Confidence and cockiness are not consent.

“When I texted you, when I needed you, even without you knowing that I did, you were there. That’s because there was no one better. You were the best person I knew. And maybe I don’t know you the same way anymore. Maybe we only know each other through Instagram posts, and a random coffee every few years, but ‘who you were,’ who you were for me,” I say, repeating back the phrase he used with intentional emphasis. “You were the best.”

There’s no closure for us, for this. There wasn’t then, and there isn’t now. We can only choose to accept it. Everything that happened between us, after us. All the time that’s passed, I didn’t know what I was missing. It was you. It was all of this.

I need you to understand how I felt. How I still feel, in many ways. So, Arden, while there might never be closure for us, finally, there can be understanding.”

She looks painfully beautiful, or maybe pained and beautiful.

“I’ve missed you. You were the love of my life, and I will always care about you more than circumstance allows.”

She was the love of my life, the love of that life.

I forced myself to close that book and start a new one. But even forcing it closed didn’t wholly erase the story from memory.

“Reid, you can miss me now, the way I miss you. The way I think I’ll always miss you. But I learned a long time ago that you can miss something without wanting it back. Knowing that what you miss is just the memory.

You can’t build a life on the blueprints of memories alone.”

My feelings are the pendulum between loss and anger, regardless when it stops swinging,

“Hi, Reid.” “Hey, AB, sorry I’m late.” “You’re not late, I’m just early.” “Old habits.”