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This is my first Reddit post, bear with me. I dunno if you guys can relate, think I'm a little too old for this site. Anyways.
His name is Matthew, we grew up together in some small-town dump full of flat land and shitty lemonade. I'm a 46 year old man (this isn't really relevant to the story, but I'm p sure the subreddit guidelines ask for this stuff).
I fell in love with him in ninth grade. Shit, life was easy back then. He played hockey and studied biology, I swung some bats around and had an athletic scholarship waiting for me. We'd been friends for years before then. And yeah, I know, you guys probably get fifty posts a second about childhood friends and drifting apart, guess I'm just susceptible to cheese (oops).
After graduation, we took a road trip out to the desert. I remember the sky being cloudy blue, open sun and nothing but faint slopes in the horizon. And god, the guy was fucking gorgeous. Not seriously hot, but a natural beauty, you know? He had wavy hair and these dorky glasses I loved as much as he hated.
We ended up in different colleges, but it didn't matter. We still talked all the time, and we'd meet up under this dead tree back home every Christmas. He stopped playing hockey a couple years in, and started focusing on what he really wanted to do. He decided to become a vet, while I ditched baseball and took up business and management. All was well, we started calling less frequently and I even forgot about my feelings for a whole five months. Dated around, drank, crammed for exams and generally lived the good ol' fashioned college life.
It was after college that the feelings came back full-fucking-force. I had a girlfriend at the time, but still decided to call him up and invite him to dinner. Just a friendly reunion, nothing more. Then I saw him, and all my denial just jumped out the window. I was more in love than ever before, and spent the entire night giving myself mental pep talks. I'd make a move, ditch my girlfriend, and run off with this guy to herd goats in the Alps or some shit.
That didn't happen. We spent the night wandering around homeless people, ordered cheap beers, and he was gone before I had the chance to grow some balls.
I didn't see him for a long time after that. Hell, I'm married now. There was a period where I forgot he even existed, didn't call him, bought a shiny old ring and proposed to the pretty girl I'd been flinging with at work. Our marriage was a small affair, with a couple friends and the sweetest honeymoon in the world.
Her name is Alice, she's a real beauty with chocolate waves and a playful glint in her eye. She deserves so much more than me.
I would very much like to say that I never loved her, but that isn't true. I did, and who wouldn't? She was like rolling clouds on the wind.
Only problem is, it feels I only have a fraction of my heart left to love her, and she deserves so much more than some shitty, half-assed attempt. I fall in and out of love with this woman all the time, and we both know. Neither of us says anything, but shit do we know.
I caught myself dreaming last night; I was back in my father's beat-up truck, cruising down an empty desert highway. Matthew was there.