When We Were

by Diana Elliot Graham

I preferred it down and a little wild right now, and the big curls I had started to wear more frequently in the last months, a part of myself I used to polish, now I let them out, too.

yes curly hair rep we love that

“I want to know what you’re celebrating.” I hear a voice say. I spin around on the barstool and lean forward falling into this stranger. He’s young, my age, maybe a little older.

okay so i have a very far fetched theory about who this could be

We have another round; he tells me his name, tells me about how he’s pre-law.

why isn't the name mentioned huh is this just another random guy or is it..??????

But at the same time, the attention he’s giving me is something more dangerous than the alcohol I’ve been consuming all night.

👀

He said what he needed to, made the decision, and once I was there, standing in it, I set fire to any chance of salvaging the framework of our relationship.

:(((((((((

I can have regret, but I can also make it right. I can text him. Tell him. I can’t undo what I said, I can’t undo the tequila, but in this swirled, blurred, state, I know that I need to see him. To tell him, and this time I don’t think we’d find ourselves on different sides. I’ll cross the bridge to him if he’ll let me.

SHE WANTED TO CALL HIM SHE ALMOST DID

Hoping this will be the sip that pushes me into amnesia. Hoping this will be the sip that wipes the missing memories of Reid from where they remained.

arden it WILL get better for you I promise

I said it, and as much as I wanted to mean it, my heart broke a little more at that moment. 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.

God I want this guy to die

Taking the path of least resistance doesn’t mean the road itself is an easier one.

:(((((((

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

He thought that the place in my life Reid left empty was now his to fill, but it isn’t. It isn’t anyone’s to fill, anyone but myself.

you're right 100% right

And the way to regain that control? Relive last night.

taking back her control because it was the only way she knew how to deal with what happened

And I throw them all into the mental bonfire of our relationship. Burning the memories as fuel for this moment.

“A power shift.” My voice is steady. I feel it in this moment, as I stand here barely dressed, watching him emotionally unravel, that there has been a power shift.

taking her power back

gave you what you took. I gave you me. And now, I’m taking it back.

such a powerful moment. she's SO powerful.

“But I’d rather wake up every day as the bitch you think I am, than wake up one more day as the idiot who thinks you actually care about me. Maybe one day, you will realize why this was never going to be possible, but that’s not today, and that’s not my problem.”

The devastation. She’s not. She’s composed. Unfazed. Like this was something she resolved within herself a long time ago, never planning on bringing it up.

that's my brave strong favourite girl

Even with what I’d heard through the grapevine, the thing that kept me from reaching out to her was never him, it was me.

yes.

hoping to meet for coffee, and I ran. Thinking it might be a reconciliation, but when I saw her, it wasn’t. Just a friendship she was trying to build. One I had offered her months prior, one she finally decided to claim. Now, I think she needed more.

she needed you

One hand gripping the whiskey glass, the other I moved under the table to hide the flexing of my fingers. Stretching them out before pulling them back into a tightened fist for a punch I will never be able to throw.

you and me both, reid

It’s not a story I tell, and one that took years for me to come to terms with completely, not easily understanding or accepting it for what it was when it happened,

Something that happened so long ago it feels like it was lived by a different person. In many ways, it was.

she grew so much

“I should have been. You were a mile from me. While I was stubborn, missing you. You were only a mile from me. I let my arrogance fill that distance. I let my pride keep me from calling you. I knew you and I wasn’t going to crawl after you when you so willingly left. After I heard you were with him...”

he's right

always hated that you ran right to him, but God, what an arrogant asshole I’ve been. Because it didn’t matter what rumor I heard, what he said. He’s not the reason I never called you, I am.

you are.

to be you to tell me you wanted me. Because I thought I had already done that when we were together, and if there was any chance, I knew I needed you to be clear about what you wanted.

love the title mentions

Maybe I thought it was him, but as time went on, slowly I convinced myself you weren’t who I wanted to be with either.”

reid :((((((

“When you texted me, regardless of what I had been feeling, or how mad I had been... When I saw you, it was the first time I felt like I wasn’t underwater since you walked out the door.

Even though this time you were back to being guarded, and I thought it was me.”

😭😭😭😭😭

You just went on and on, clinging to any topic you could. And I was trying not to cling to you. Then when you said you wanted to be friends.

she was trying she really was she needed him to see it needed him to focus on her

You deserved one better than me. Someone who knew you.”

you were it for her

“Better than you, Reid? That’s really what you think? There was no one better than you.”

When I told him he didn’t know me, he was the only person who had really tried without motive beyond my happiness. “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.”

HE WAS THE BEST

“I have a lot to be sorry for, Arden. More than I realized. More than you blame me for, but it’s true. I’ll take responsibility for it now. For the breakup,”

yes.

I’m fucking twenty-two all over again, ready to pull you into my arms, to throw you over my shoulder. I can still see the future that we could have had if I stayed. The one you currently have.”

I can see it too 😭😭😭😭😭

“The only reason it’s not on the table even now, isn’t because I’m a good man, but because I’m a bad one.”

no room for miscommunication. It should have been clear that in whatever I said, you wouldn’t be able to think it meant anything but I love you, because I really did love you.

yes you did

A good man would have chased you, fought for you. God, I should have fucking protected you. Instead, what did I do? Absolutely nothing. I pushed you away from me and into his arms.

😭😭😭😭😭

But I should have; I should have proved it all. Because you had let me know you, before you knew it, before you ever accepted it, you let me see you, and I fell in love with you for it.”

yes. yes. yes. yes.

reaches across, extending it to me, and I accept, as our fingers brush just slightly before retreating back to their respective sides of the table. His handwriting will always be recognizable to me, so much of our relationship spent leaving notes for each other in the margins of books.

My initials next to his, a line down the center. At the time, I thought he was keeping score. Never did I realize he kept the actual scorecard. Nor did I know that when he told me he didn’t care about points, just how honest that was.

the fact that he kept the scorecard makes me tear up

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.

he knew her

The gravity of this artifact of our relationship. This fossil of us when we were together. My eyes scan the page again before I look back at him, his eyes waiting for mine to reconnect to his before he continues. “I’m sorry, AB. You can’t tell me I shouldn’t be. That’s that truth. I’ve lived without you long enough, if you don’t think I have reason enough to apologize, then you’re making me live without your forgiveness as well.

I'VE LIVED WITHOUT YOU LONG ENOUGH

“Closure?” The sound that punctuates that question isn’t a laugh. “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.

gets me every damn time

came here because I needed to see you. Fuck that, selfishly I wanted to see you. Not knowing what it would be like now, knowing how colossally we fucked up back then.

he wanted to see her 😭😭😭

His eyes following their track, maybe dangerously thinking, like I am, about the lines our lives could have taken. But he halts the motion, releasing the thought, and settling his hands back to where they had been resting.

But just because you don’t want to hold on to something anymore, doesn’t mean letting it go is easier.

absolutely correct

opens his mouth to speak. “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.”

he loved her

I think about my home, my career, my fiancée, my terrible cat, these things should ground me. It’s not that they don’t. But sitting here across from her, it’s easy to see how this could have been our life.

IN ANOTHER LIFE

Though everything within me is screaming to step back. I don’t. She doesn’t want me to. It’s our time to be honest in all the ways I never have before. “I’ve missed you. You were the love of my life, and I will always care about you more than circumstance allows.”

YOU WERE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

know. I needed her to know that despite everything. She was the love of my life, the love of that life. The one that existed in my small apartment and the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The young love that made me feel bold, and terrified, that left me ripped in two when she left. And when she did leave, when I made her leave, when we ended up with this twisted painful understanding refusing to meet in the middle, 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.

God I love them I will always love them