When We Were

by Diana Elliot Graham

To anyone who thinks they need closure, it’s not found anywhere outside of yourself. To anyone who thinks they need control, I promise you already have it.

“We might be playing for a while then...” “That’s what I’m hoping for.” Me too. “What about points?” “We can track points the same way you do in normal scrabble, but I’ll tell you now, Arden,” that smile pulling on his lips, “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.”

Reid: Is that what I am, a suitor? Maybe I should have asked about your dowry before getting such a coveted gift? He’s into it. He must really be into me.

He asked about me in a way people usually didn’t. He seemed interested in the layered parts of me, not just what was outwardly facing, and he didn’t hold back in repaying the truths with his own. There was something special about this morning coffee ritual. What was building between us, what brewed each morning, was a lot more than coffee.

“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.”

Every turn I played was written here. Only mine. My favorite movie, my coffee order, all the small things I answered. And all the things he saw beyond that. Next to ‘violin,’ he wrote ‘precise.’ Next to the word ‘political,’ he wrote ‘caring.’ Next to the word ‘student,’ he wrote ‘brilliant.’ Next to the word ‘interested,’ he wrote, ‘me too.’ Circled and underlined thrice.

“Haven’t you realized by now... you and me? 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.

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

You can love a memory without loving the person. And as I look at him, I know that the love we have for each other in this moment is that.

“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.

You loved someone else, someone I used to be, and maybe I’m still her, and maybe in some ways you’re still him, but it was never going to be enough, and we won’t be them again, at least not together.”