I missed you, did I ever tell you that?

We hadn’t talked in over a month, and stubborn as I am, I didn’t call. I didn’t text. I didn’t even say hi. But, that’s how it always is isn’t it. We both know I’m not a gryffindor. I don’t have a single grain of courage, and somehow that applies to picking up a phone and typing a message. Maybe that’s why we work so well together, you make up for my stupidity, stubbornness, and lack of courage. I missed that.

Go to sleep, eat your dinner, do your homework..!

I’m not your mom, much as I sound like it sometimes. But, you have to sleep. No, I’m not trying to get you off the phone. I could talk with you until 6 am the next morning, but it’s almost midnight. You have a test. You need rest. And, I see it in your eyes, fluttering, struggling to stay open. You’re tired, go to sleep. Goodnight, I....

“I adore you.”

Shut up. LALALALALALA!! I can’t hear youuuuu. Yeah sorry, I can’t take a compliment. Don’t spite me please. You know what, I adore you too, everything about you. You’re the most wonderful person my presence has ever been graced with in my menial existence. HA, how do you like that? I adore YOU.

I actually do adore you.... it wasn’t just sarcasm

I hope that you know I wasn’t joking. Sure, it was sarcastic, to counter what you said about me. But, that’s how it is with us. We just skip around with sarcasm, and debates, and silly arguments. I hope you know, I mean what I say sometimes. Not when I say you’re rude, not when I say I hate you, not when I say you’re mean to me. I never mean that. Everything you do is endearing, it lifts my spirits every day I talk to you. It’s not always sarcasm.

You’re my best friend.

I have nothing to say but that, you’re my best friend. Through everything my own brain and my own thoughts put me through, somehow you’re always there. I don’t believe in the glorified Hollywood idea of best friends where you just have a single friend, and that’s the only person you always talk to, and have an eternal bond with secret meeting places. But, if that were to exist, I’d want to have that with you. I’d want to do all the stupid stuff with you. Sneak out of the house, go to prom, build a treehouse, share a college dorm together, go on a road trip together, scream lyrics at the top of our lungs, get drunk when we’re 21, go to a karaoke club for all I care. I want memories with you.

I don’t know how else to say it. And no, it’s not a traditional way to say it. But, I don’t care. I missed you, take care of yourself, I adore you, it’s not sarcasm, I want memories with you.

I hate you.

I hate you when you stare into my soul and make me feel naked and ... so... vulnerable...

I hate that I want to feel vulnerable with you...

I hate the way your lips curve slowly into a smile, going all the way to the wrinkles around your eyes... making me feel like I’d tear the world to see you smile like that once again...

I hate the way my breath catches seeing the fire in your eyes, burning me with their light...

I hate the way I want to become a better person, make the world a better place, for you, to be your equal...

I hate the way we argue and fight and still I’d forgive you in an instant if you asked me to...

I hate the way you make me feel so powerless and yet so powerful all at the same time...

I hate you.

I hate it when you are in pain, because of me or because of something else...

I hate it when someone treats you less than you deserve, and you allow it...

I hate it when you feel you deserve less than you do...

I hate you when you don’t use your potential, when you have so much to offer...

I hate it when you are haunted by things that I don’t understand

When you don’t tell me about those things that I don’t understand...

I hate you.

I hate you when you are petty and immature and selfish and so human that I just can’t digest it...

Then I hate myself for hating you...

I hate it when reality slaps my face telling me that you are not perfect... and I hate myself for slapping reality back saying that

I wouldn’t have you any other way...

It’s been a while since I have seen you. Days, weeks, months have gone by. Three hundred twelve days. Forty six weeks. Ten months, to be exact. My heart aches to feel the way I felt that night.

We are so similar, yet so different. You are the travelling cowboy, who spends his summers at the rodeos riding bulls. I am the small town girl, the daughter of a rancher. We are from the smallest towns, neither are populated over 3,000. You have travelled our country extensively, having been on a plane once. I have travelled this world extensively, having been on more planes than road trips. We are two of kind, yet one in the same.

The way we looked at eachother across the yard, it was just like a movie. After the rodeo, my best friend had a birthday party. You happened to follow a mutual friend. That’s when I saw you for the first time. You had a beer in your hand, your hat was crooked, and you had a purple shirt on. We sat and talked for hours. We left to go on the swings at the park beside the house. We talked about everything. You actually listened, which made my heart leap out of my chest. We walked back to the party and you introduced me to your friends. Your friends cheered and clapped when you finally kissed me. You kissed me in front of everyone. That was when I knew. No one had kissed me with an audience before, let alone a rowdy high school party full of our friends.

Do you remember staying up until 5am just to get to know eachother? Do you remember the butterflies when you kissed me? Do you remember when I ran away to my friend, because I had never kissed a cowboy infront of anyone? Do you remember how I didn’t care and ran back into your arms? Do you remember the way our arms always found their way back to eachother? I do. I remember thinking, “This could be it. He could be my greatest adventure. He could be the love of my life. He might be the one that got away.”

You are the greatest love of my life that never happened. Maybe this June, we will remember eachother. You will remember how I cried when I left. I will remember the potential. The potential that we can be the greatest love story in the world. Two small town dreamers who live nine hours apart. How wonderful is it to think that we could have had it?

I am not in love with you. However, I could be. I could have been so undeniably and unconditionally in love with you. I still could be. The way my skin lit aflame when you touched my bare arm was no coincidence. Or, the way my heart leaps, my lungs catch, my body shivers, when I see the one photograph we have together. Was it a one time, heart bursting night that we will remember for the rest of our lives? Or, will it be the night a love story begins? The night we tell our children when they ask how we met? Will we have the most beautiful, intreicate, amazing, sincere relationship? Or, was our potential mean to be contained to one night?

Well, cowboy, here is to us. Here is to the greatest love I never had. Here is to the night that brought us together. Here is to hoping we remember. Until then cowboy, you are the one that got away.