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I had a dream about you last night. Well, more like a late-night half-asleep fantasy, but who's counting the differences?
It was years from now, well after you moved away and well after you moved on. The world had landed us back together, sitting alone on the balcony of a friend of a friend's house party. You were rolling me a joint while I complained that I missed your amazing rolling ability almost as much as I missed you.
(Staring at your hands was my favorite pastime. The way your fingers were so elegant and gentle matched the rest of you so well. When you paint, or when you held my hand it was akin to watching God mold the universe from start to finish. The complexity that you can create with a single swipe of a brush never failed to have me questioning how lucky I was to have even held the attention of someone like yourself. And, along with the gorgeous pale that bent around the paper, I liked watching you roll. I've never met someone so talented. Breathing through joints that you rolled felt like a holy experience, and one I was glad to partake in.)
Light chatter fell between us, bantering and sharing stories like I know we would. Years apart and still you'd make me more comfortable than I am anywhere else.
(You've never failed to make me feel comfortable in my skin, even before we started dating. You are a calm body of water, a cool stream that was pleasant to float down compared to the constant rapids of my brain. The only time I haven't felt at peace around you was the one time I've seen you since we broke up; when I couldn't manage to get your attention despite it being the only thing I wanted.)
When you handed me the rolled joint, followed by a lighter after a brief search for my own, we fell down into a comfortable silence. The smell of burning weed filled the air around us, before the smoke that matched it came with. We settled into a comfortable silence, vodka mixer in your hand and spliff against my lips.
(I still know your favorite drink. I know why you stopped smoking. I know your favorite brand of cigarettes, and your favorite brand of vodka. I know what art mediums you like, and how neatly the swirl of your brushes appear. I know that you don't like marshmallows, but I know you love skittles. I know a lot about you. I wish I'd have taken the time to learn more.)
"I still think about it. Us, I mean. I'm sorry I never treated you how you should have been treated. You never deserved to be the second choice."
The apology is heartfelt, something that's been resting on the back of my tongue since before we broke up. Still, you're quick to assure me that it was never that big a deal, and it doesn't matter that much anymore, and you're over it, really.
(I never meant to choose him over you. Yet consistently, over and over again I felt a sense of duty to fulfill my relationship with him. You felt more like a lover I was keeping on the side, to both of us. But let me assure you I have never loved him like I love you. My sense of duty to those around me is strong, and I'm sorry I let it come in the way of my love for you. I don't love him like I love you. I'm not sure how I love him, but I know it's not like the adoration I hold for every inch of your body. Every line that makes up your existence and all the things that make up your childhood. I'm sorry I let him list off his life to me, neglecting the want to listen as you explain every word you've ever spoken. I'm sorry I did not love you like how you deserve to be loved. I'm sorry I let it boil away inside, despite so badly wanting to let it out.)
"A part of me wishes I'd met you before I met him." The words fell out my mouth, quiet enough to be whisked away with the smoke that joined them; There's more history behind the sentence than either of us would like to share with the open night sky, but they sat between us, both aware of what exactly I was saying. That if I'd met you first, I'd have the freedom to fall in love. I'd be able to call you my boyfriend freely and lovingly, without the worry of what exactly I was confessing. "A shamefully large part, given that it's been six years."
The words were followed by a small chuckle, but you stayed quiet, sipping from your plastic cup.
(I wish I hadn't made him such a large part of my life. I love him, I do, but I wish I hadn't told everyone that before I realized it's you I'd like to share with the world. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't feel immeasurable guilt for being so greedy, and even after I let you go, let everyone be happy again, I still wish and hope for the day you return. My biggest regret is letting you go, and my biggest guilt is not finding happiness with him.)
"You know, I talked to them about it. After we broke up, I talked to our friends. Once or twice over the first year, I let it slip that I couldn't stop thinking about you. That I hadn't stopped thinking about you. At first, I was given slight hope that you felt the same. That it wasn't too soon to turn around and call your name. Then I was told that it was time to move on. My name had stopped falling from your lips, so yours must stop echoing in my head. I was told that time would heal all, and I just had to forget about you. I wonder what she'd think, seeing me here over half a decade later confessing my love to you again."
Again, the sentence was followed by a laugh, and again you remained silent.
(You always were quiet. Never much one for talking, happy to sit and listen and watch. But your emotions show clear on your face, easy to read and assume. The way your lips curled into a smile that never failed to knock the air out of my lungs. The way your cheeks flush red when you drink and when you blush, usually accompanied by the smile when we pointed it out. The way your eyebrows would move along your face while you were distracted, watching your phone while I watched you. Did you ever notice? how much I liked watching you?)
I turned my head to look at you, holding the sight in my head while you watched over the city lights. Your cheeks had the flush on them caused by alcohol, and your eyebrows were scrunched up in thought. You'd never looked cuter.
"I don't want this to change anything." Letting the words continue to tumble out felt safer when I turned my head back to the view. Less like I was saying them to you, and more just close enough for you to hear. "And I don't expect it to change anything either. I mean, how can I? I'm engaged." The words resounded around us with light tones, echoing with meaning far heavier.
(I've never been good with my own emotions, it's something that helped us down the path of a failed relationship. They swell up in my body like an ever-increasing tidal wave, contained in a space far too small for them. I've always wished I had wings. I thought maybe the extra space in these new, flexible limbs will help hold whatever I'm feeling inside.)
I felt, in the dream, as though I was going to throw up. Words, or light, or anything that existed at all I'm not sure. But the feelings blockaded my throat and made it hard to breath, swallowing thick mouthfuls of air as though I could quell whatever's trying to escape my body. I can't. I never can.
"Just sad that I signed away the heart that belongs to you." I said it with a shrug, putting out the joint against the concrete beneath us, flicking the butt down onto the street. You finally looked up. Finally looked at me, for the first time since I brought up this sour topic of love.
(Your eyes. Cliché, but classic. The little squint of your eyelids when you smile, and the twinkle in them whenever your thinking. The brown in your eyes that somehow seems the most brown to ever brown, in possibly the best way brown has ever browned. And there is no other way to describe anything about you, is there? You are simply the best to have ever been, no questions asked. You're gorgeous, honey. You always have been.)
"You're drunk. And high." you whispered, still not looking at me. the words were quiet, audibly held down under the weight of your tongue, but said with such confident softness that for a second even I believed your charade of believing that's all it was. An altered mindset. Not the truth. It took me a second to respond, but even I could hear the fondness in my voice through whatever dream barriers exist.
"Yeah, but you know. Mind altering substances have a way of loosening your tongue. And secrets that have wrapped tight around my tongue for years have just been waiting to spill, haven't they?"
You put your almost-empty cup down between us, and instead exchanged it for my hand that had been lying on the concrete. It took a few moments of you fiddling with my fingers, bending them back and forth and watching them move, for any more words to be spoken.
"You always had a way with words, Love." Barely audible. Barely a whisper above the sounds across the street, and the sounds behind the glass sliding door. But I heard it. I heard it through my ears, that are always listening for your honey-sweet voice. I heard it through my fingers, relaxing against the touch of your own. I heard it through my heart, jumping and aching to hear that word one more time.
"And you always were the absolute perfect piece of art, Zack." Your name held reverent in my mouth, and even now that I've woken up I can feel it still rolling around my tongue. A name I will always love, but never have. You will never be mine. And that's okay.
Because, in this hopelessly romantic dream I have created, we spend hours sitting next to each other, bathing in the finality of us. We become friends again, and your name doesn't carry the same heavy weight on my shoulders it did before. In this world where you come back to me, you stand beside me on my wedding day and hug me after I place a ring on the finger of the man who Is Not You. You come visit me in hospital after I have my children, and I bite my tongue when I go to say I wish my kid had the same dark brown hair that covers your head. You visit my kids as they grow older, and I am forced to be content with them calling you Uncle. And I can live with it, I can. Because I do love him. I will just always love you more.