I was just laying in bed trying to turn off my brain to get some sleep but I'm currently binging through Jane the Virgin and with all the convoluted love stories of people breaking up and coming back together, the man is on my mind. The last few episodes were so focused on all the twists and turns and crazy things that had to happen to bring the characters to their nows. They even went back to the beginning for some of them. Just now I was realizing I vividly remember every first kiss we shared, but the last ones, not as much and I wonder if it's because every time I never knew it was the last one so I just wasn't paying enough attention for the memory to stick. But each of those firsts, there had been such a build up, I knew they were important.
I remember the first time we ever interacted in the hallway outside of the ladies room that I had just left and he acted like he didn't know who I was, even though he later told me he did. That apparently we both had noticed one another, recognized an instant attraction, and a strange pull and desire to know one another.
Years later in the beginnings of my divorce and two short weeks, of inappropriate conversations and one on one walks, that felt like an eternity, he made that offer to drive me to the shore. That very first kiss in that boat on the beach with the steady crashing of the waves will probably forever be the best first kiss I've ever had. The combination of having wanted it to happen for years at that point, and then being teased with the potential for those weeks and knowing it wasn't allowed, just made it all the more tantalizing. I don't remember the last kiss... I know it must have been a quick peck as I left his place that Sunday morning before I would later confess to my sister my transgressions and then tell him that until he made a lasting decision and determined his marriage was not salvageable we needed to be over. I remember when he begged to talk in person, and we sat in my car, in the parking lot outside of the barnes and noble that haunts me to this day any time I visit that shopping center, and I asked if I could touch him as we both cried. Not even to kiss him even though I wanted to, but just to comfort him and he told me no and I felt my heart break just a little bit more.
Two and half years later he would randomly text me one night after reaching out via the work communicator earlier that week, breaking a nearly six month span of zero contact, not even friendly chats around the office. He would tell me that he and his wife were separated and that he was getting a divorce and that he wanted to see me. We would meet up at a park and sit in my car and he would share the crazy that had been his life the last few weeks and then almost as if no time had passed I would find myself basically on his lap and fervently kissing him while also feeling his hesitation. Even so, he invited me over that night, and even though so much of me knew it was such a bad idea and I should have kept my distance, I had spent those years feeling almost nothing and it was intoxicating to feel so alive. Again I don't remember the last kiss just that it was probably a quick peck as he met me in my car on my birthday before I headed back to Pittsburgh when he told me he no longer thought coming out to visit me was a good idea. Four days later we would fight over text and it was clear he had not decided at all if he was really getting divorced and I told him he was a selfish asshole for reaching out to me and blocked him on my phone. I would spend the summer trying to forget the reunion had happened at all and did my best to immerse myself in my life out there with new friends and a cute boy who was infatuated with me. I tried to tell him everything was temporary... but it didn't matter.
Shortly after spending a week home, the very day I finally had the guts to end things with the boy and stop using him as a crutch the man reached out with an email telling me he missed me and asking when we would see each other. I told him I didn't know but that I needed him to leave me alone. But it only took a sappy romance and a few glasses of wine for me to text him late one night not even two days later asking if he was still awake. During that conversation he would tell me he loved me for the first time in three years. A little over a week later we agreed to meet up. I remember sitting on Buddha's couch, stalling to meet him, nervous as fuck knowing I was opening the door again to someone who had the power to pulverize my heart. I went anyways, and after walking around the park and chatting and catching up and recognizing that the timing was still shit, we stood by our cars and I mustered up the courage to ask him if he meant what he said, if he still loved me. He told me he did and asked if he could kiss me. It was soft, and sweet, and tentative and the desire for more was difficult to dampen. We parted ways with the idea that we would try friendship but we failed at that. Yet again, I don't remember the last kiss because I don't think we did when I walked into his office on his birthday after finding out he had been there for a while and he hadn't told me and his expression just looked guilty and so I just sat in the seat across from him. We then proceeded to have the most heart breaking conversation of my life, and then I followed it up with awkwardly giving the man who had just broken up with me, the cheesy gift I made to help replenish his buckets of alone time, quality time together, and time outside the relationship. I know I went over the top with it, but at the time I felt so helpless in being able to ease the burdens of his life and everything that was going on...I know we eventually hugged and accidentally spilled my mocha mint iced coffee everywhere, but I don't remember a kiss and I don't actually remember the last time we had seen each other before that...I know the last time I ever spent a night next to him was the night of the holiday party a week prior.
It would be a long ten months before we'd be alone together again. After two months of going back and forth about possibly meeting up, on the third time we made plans, I didn't bail. I wore a dress, put my hair up, and couldn't believe I was surprised by how immediately the desire to kiss him returned as soon as I opened my door to greet him. We awkwardly hugged and I ran back up to get my purse and we walked to the bar. We didn't eat, I'm not sure my nerves would have allowed me to if we had...just drinks, and we chatted about whatever, I no longer remember, I just remember making him laugh and seeing him smile. It had been almost six months since I left the firm and it was just so nice to see him. We closed the tab and walked back to my place and up the stairs and I gave a "tour" of the two rooms and could feel myself rambling trying to calm my nerves because I had no idea how things were going to progress and then all of a sudden he practically lunged towards me, grabbed my face in his hands and kissed me hard. It was easy after that, like always, it felt like no time had passed. I had expected him to stay the night, but the time went quickly and I remember standing on my stoop almost near eye level for once with me saying I wish it didn't have to end and him saying it didn't and me saying you know this is it. But of course it wasn't, but over those next four months, he never would spend the night. As with all the other times, I don't remember the last kiss...I know it had to have been that afternoon delight a few days before things imploded, but it had been a quick encounter, I don't even remember getting a decent view of his face. We made genuine lunch plans for the next day, but he had to runoff after forgetting a prior engagement, and I just sat there eating my food. I didn't even hug him, and I never would again. I would beat myself up about that for years to come.
A few months later I would see him briefly across a crowded bar, slowly working up the courage to interact, and had brought a sketch of the tattoo I was currently planning as an ice breaker, because I will forever be an overthinker. By the time I had the nerve to ask a mutual friend if they had seen him recently, they told me he had left. I would reach out saying as much, but the conversation was like pulling teeth. I had no idea he was already trying again with his wife. I wouldn't figure that out until over a month later after seeing him in person for the last time but never interacting. It's been over a year and a half since then, and over a year since the last time he communicated with me, and that was just to avoid one another at a social event. The last time I reached out was last May after an internet stalking session informed me of the passing of his grandmother and I was feeling nostalgic as I was packing up my life to move to yet another state. He never acknowledged and the finality of us being strangers finally sank in.
For so long I was so convinced that it was real and genuine and that I had been made to love him. That everything in my life that I had endured had prepared me to be capable of being what he needed and in return I finally had someone I was completely sure about. It was the best feeling to have zero doubts. I had fears and worries, but no doubts that he was what I wanted.
The voice that says I was just a vacation home for his penis, a band aid for his ego, and a free therapist for his problems, grew pretty loud. I don't hear it so often these days, thankfully the heavy sadness that once tainted everything is no longer this ever present thing. Instead it pops in every now and then, some triggers I can anticipate, others catch me off guard. Right now it makes me sad how hard it is to believe it was ever love, because I genuinely never wanted to reach that place, but alas, here we are. So much of me wonders how the man frames these memories in his life story and if I ever was anything other than a mistake.
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