When We Were

by Diana Elliot Graham

don’t know who could look at her like this and feel anything but the resurgence of that love.

she's amazing

This woman is wildly fierce, and roars, she doesn’t eke out small whispers. Which tells me she’s almost afraid of what she’s admitted. “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.”

SHE IS WILDLY FIERCE SHE ROARS

“But memories aren’t always honest, ours clearly weren’t.

absolutely correct. love the concept of memories in this book because we don't remember things as they are

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

the truth. it hurts.

know that the reality of the situation is that nothing lasts when you’re twenty-two, or more so, when you’re nineteen, but I have written on these very pages that I had thought the opposite was coming true.

SHE WAS IT FOR HIMMM

Didn’t turn around, no final look back. No final I love you

could have gotten her to focus on us rather than run away.

I WISH

Not comfort, she is fine.

IS SHE??????????

My feelings are the pendulum between loss and anger, regardless when it stops swinging, I stay in this position of acceptance.

REID NO

Not to call her. Not to just knock on her door. The thing that prevents it, sheer will power.

i hate it here

our whole fucking relationship. Driving the wedge further between us, until he was the devil on her shoulder, taunting her, pushing her, until she snapped, deciding whatever the fuck it was she decided.

i want josh to die already

I might fucking hate Joshua,

I fucking hate Joshua too

but for as much as I hated him, I fucking loved her. How stupid. How misplaced.

NOT STUPID NOT MISPLACED

To make matters worse, she texted me Saturday night. Late. ‘Hey’ was all she said. ‘Hi’ was what I said back while I waited like a fucking teenager, waiting for the follow up ‘I miss you’ or even

you shouldve called her

Surely alcohol fueled, but at least it was an opportunity to open this conversation again. To see her.

Austin will take over my lease, I can’t be here anymore. I swear if I have to look at that fucking piano much longer, I’ll take an axe to it.

NOT THAT PIANO LEAVE THAT PIANO ALONE GIVE IT TO ME???

worked hard to have them, and I was going to ignore all of that and just stay here.

you should've stayed.

But maybe it’s time to close this chapter and

NOOOO

Austin will be pissed if I don’t stick around but I think I’ll be pissed if I do, after all it’s not like–

oh honey

AB: Want to grab a coffee?

YES YES YES

If that’s the case, why ask to meet? What does she even want, besides coffee apparently?

what do you think...

I never fully understood her, though I tried desperately.

YOU DID UNDERSTAND HER

I gave her anything she asked. I tried to, or, I would have, eventually.

check my wallet. Yep, I’ve got a hundred ready to pay up for the best bet I ever lost.

not now. just fourteen years later.

I can’t beg her to come back to our relationship, but I can meet her for coffee.

But it has to be her that says it.

this is your downfall

Tomorrow? That’s urgent. Maybe this is a good sign. Fuck, that doesn’t work for me. This whole week is nuts.

maybe you should've cancelled the interviews?

That might be what I want, but I know better.

you don't

She didn’t confirm the time or place, but she must know like I do that it will be the standard coffee date we had for weeks when we first started

yes.

The coffee date we still shared when we had to squeeze in time before classes. Now, it will be the coffee date where she tells me she didn’t want it to be over.

I WISH

Maybe this chapter isn’t over.

crying again

I’m ready to leave this school, ready to get out of this city for the summer, but not before seeing him.

last two weeks have felt like they moved in slow-motion, and I am ready to live my life in real time again.

It's A SLOW MOTION AVALANCHE

I’ve decided I want to focus on business courses, not science.

i love you arden finally putting your needs first finally going after what YOU want

You’ve never been a disappointment to anyone but yourself, and I doubt you ever could.”

THEY ARE RIGHT

Stripped of so many of the memories we made here this year.

crying again

We could technically remain on campus for another four weeks before the dorms closed, but we both are done and ready to go. She misses her boyfriend and so do I.

i miss your boyfriend too

But there are some things I have no intention of ever unpacking. I boxed them up, shelved them away. Sealing them with my own actions.

:(((( the breakup was so painful for her she couldn't look at the photos or anything that reminded her of it

I still wake up at night, my insomnia worsening, and I look forward to not being in this bed, in this room, in this city.

:(((((

The mental patrols I had guarding them vanished. And the fortress I used to protect my conscious sanity becomes wholly exposed in a way I can’t control.

I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM THIS WORLD

It wasn’t until I found myself sitting on the bench of the ice rink some time after two in the morning

okay i literally had no memory of this scene like what the fuck what do you mean arden goes to the ice rink and sits their alone when she can't sleep and wishes reid was there the ice rink the same place she felt herself fall in love with him the moon chaperoning overhead the only witness to this MOMENT

sat there on the bench staring at the empty space where the ice had been.

it will get better for you

a reminder to the nights I spent here laughing with him. Now I sit here, crying alone, similarly just a shell in comparison to what I was then.

I CANT DO THIS I REALLY CANT DO THIS

For me, I thawed in winter. Warmed in ways I hadn’t expected. Layers of ice melting, evaporating overtime. Only to refreeze when everyone else shed their coats.

:(((

We are meeting at 8 a.m., which means we will both likely be there well before to claim our table.

THEIR TABLE

The two-person, cafe style, small table in the window. That was our table, and for everything I’ve given up so far in the short amount of time since I left his apartment, I’m not giving up our table.

OH GIRL

pull on one of my favorites, and always a conversation starter. Sometimes an argument starter,

she wanted to make him smile

But Reid laughed the first time he saw it, and I thought he might laugh now.

crying again

Is it political? Yes. Is it also punny? Yes. Two things I love.

she <3

I’m wearing jeans and converse, even though I had freshly shaved legs. Just in case. I told myself.

oh girl..