“Hi Megan."

 “Hi.”

                The first words we spoke to each other face to face in eight months.  Definitely not the reunion I had expected.  But what was I expecting?  Us to run into each other’s arms and say how much we had missed each other?  No.  Just no.  That’s not how this works.  You see, being former friends and once-upon-a-time lovers, our story is very….complicated, to say the least.

                I froze when he spoke to me.  Eight months and that’s how you great me?  The last time we saw each other I fell asleep in your lap, not knowing that it would be the last precious moments we would spend together for a very long time.  And just “hi”?  Maybe he was as shocked as I was.  Maybe that’s why I wanted to say more, but I didn’t because it felt like everything had stopped and it was just my brain screaming at me.

                You loved him.

                He left you.

                You still loved him.

                He did some terrible things.

                You forgave him over and over.

                He supported you.

                You ignored him.

                He loved you.

                You blocked him from your life.

                And I thought that would be the end.  Until now.  My brain kept wrestling like that and finally I ran to the bathroom.  I slumped down the wall and lay on the floor, breathing heavily.  It really is him.  Why did he have to come here?  Why?

                It saddens me to think that we can have people in our lives that are so important to us, and then one day they become nothing to you.  You did everything together.  You stabbed each other in the back a million times, but you still loved one another.  And now they’re doing the things they did with you with someone new.  You’ve been replaced in their heart but maybe they haven’t been replaced in yours.  And that may just be the hardest thing a human being will ever experience.

                They grew up without you.  And you’re still young and stuck in the past.  Hungover on the memories that don’t even matter anymore.  In fact, the other person hardly remembers.  To them, you’re just a fragment of their memory of the past.  Maybe you weren’t as important to them as you thought you were.

                The worst part is when you finally move on and realize you can live without them.  You can breathe one breath without thinking of them, you can do all the things you did with them by yourself now.  You can pull yourself out of bed in the mornings without their encouragement.  And then it hits you.  You don’t need them anymore.  Just like a baby who no longer needs its parents to stand up.  You can live without them. 

                Now if you’re a stubborn person, you know you’ll never truly move on.  You know you’ll never really forget them like you say you have.  You may have put their picture in a drawer, but you take it out and admire it every once in a while.  Marvel over how young you were, and when love was all just a game.  Maybe they’ll visit you in your dreams at night, and you’ll be able to see them once again and be kids just one more time.  Or maybe years from now, when you’re married with a kid or two, you’ll hear a knock on your door and open it to find them standing on your front porch and they’ll ask to come in.  Maybe this isn’t the end.