When We Were

by Diana Elliot Graham

Wrapping his arms around me and pulling me back into his chest, with a kiss on my temple, he rolls me off him, back onto the mattress, and he climbs out of my bed. Picking up his clothes from where they laid from the night before and chucking me my phone at me from where it had been charging.

And they aren’t dating?????

“Thanks, don’t know what I’d do without you.” He walks in, drops a kiss on the top of my head, and takes a seat.

AND YOURE NOT DATING? AM I MISSING SOMETHING

“It’s not about us being together now, but I’m here because I needed you to understand, without a shadow of a doubt, how I felt about you when we were. 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.”

“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. The version we preserve to protect the imprint of something, or someone, important.” Whatever hesitancy, if that’s what it was, is gone now and her tone strengthened with each word. “But memories aren’t always honest, ours clearly weren’t. They are filtered and viewed through whatever lens we need them to be. And you don’t make decisions on that. You can’t build a life on the blueprints of memories alone.”

We won’t be who we were when we were them. Who we were when we were happy in the blissful ignorance of ‘young love’ or whatever it is people say to be cliché. Whatever it is, people call it to make you feel like you’re under a common spell and prepare you for the idea that it isn’t permanent in any way that matters. And you aren’t unique for experiencing it. We won’t be who we were. But we will both be who we should.

Wow I love this

“So it doesn’t matter how we choose to remember what happened between us. I know two things...” He looks deep in my eyes, preparing himself for something that seems difficult to admit. “One.” He holds up a finger, and lets the soft smile pull on his lips. “I loved you.” “Two.” He extends a second finger, and the smile falls flat. “Not enough.”

“I used to think that maybe you were just the right person but at the wrong time. You know? Like maybe there would be a time for us. That there would be other chapters, but you would eventually be my epilogue. But I was wrong. I think you were the right person, at the right time, and we can blame the miscommunication trope all we want, but like you said, none of it was enough.