𝔅𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 ℌ𝔢𝔯 𝔗𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔥

The summer of 2014, the summer before our senior year. Your mother was in the hospital for a long time, and we took advantage of the abusive woman’s absence to spend everyday together. Without her shadow lingering around every corner and her harsh words echoing off of every wall I watched you bloom. I watch you embrace your interests. I heard you laugh, saw you smile. We fought for the first time, we made up for the first time. You held me through nightmares and I held you through your depressive episodes.

I remeber a perfect moment above all else. Standing in the kitchen drinking ice coffee and making alfredo for the first time. You blared the radio like you’ve never been able to do before. The memory has the constant ring of “Shut Up and Dance” by WALK THE MOON. We danced and sang to each other without letting the truth of the lyrics reach our ears.

✨I felt it in my chest as she looked at me

I knew we were bound to be together

Maybe that's why the memory hurts so much now.

Because when I look back, I can still see the girl I loved standing in that kitchen. I can still hear her laughter. I can still feel the certainty that we would spend the rest of our lives side by side.

The only thing missing is the future I built around that moment.

The song ended.

The summer ended.

And eventually, somehow, we ended too.

The kind of love that aches with unbearable intensity, filling the hollow places in my soul until they tremble and overflow, leaving me shaken but whole.

The kind of love that offers up fleeting hours without hesitation, slipping through trembling fingers only to find eternity linger in the light of your eyes and the curve of your smile.

The kind of love that burns deep, drawn from the marrow of my being, consuming everything until all that remains is the echo of your name.

The kind of love that ached with unbearable intensity, filling the hollow places in my soul until they trembled and overflowed, leaving me shaken but whole.

The kind of love that offered up fleeting hours without hesitation, slipping through trembling fingers only to find eternity lingering in the light of your eyes and the curve of your smile.

The kind of love that burned deep, drawn from the marrow of my being, consuming everything until all that remained was the echo of your name.

And now you are gone.

Now the hollow places are hollow once more, aching not from being filled with love, but from the absence of it. The hours still slip through my fingers, but eternity no longer waits for me in your smile. It waits in the distance between us, in the silence where your voice used to be.

I still love you, always and endlessly. Not with the blissful certainty I once carried, but with the grief of someone forced to set down a future they never wanted to lose.

Some days I can bear it. Some days I can convince myself that love alone is not enough, that this was for the best.

And then there are days when the weight of missing you settles over me like an ocean. Days when I would give anything to hold your hand again. To hear your laugh. To tell you I love you and hear it returned.

But the cruelest part is that the love remains.

The heavens have not crumbled. The earth has not swallowed us whole.

The world simply kept turning.

And somehow that hurts more.

Often they are violent and unpleasant. Full of old fears, old wounds, and things that chase me long after I open my eyes.

But there was a time when waking up made it all worthwhile.

Every morning, you were there beside me. Sleeping soundly and unaware. Your peace rolled over me like a wave, washing the remnants of nightmares from my skin. I would watch your long dark lashes rest against freckled cheeks and think that no dream could ever compare to the reality of you.

You were the only dream I needed.

Now, sometimes, I dream of you instead.

I dream that I wake up and you're still there. That I can reach across the bed and find your hand. That the distance between us was only another nightmare waiting to dissolve in the morning light.

And for a few precious moments after I open my eyes, I believe it.

Then reality settles over me.

The bed is empty.

The room is quiet.

And the cruelest part is that I'd rather face every nightmare I've ever had than wake up each day to the absence you left behind.

Because once upon a time, no matter what darkness waited for me in my sleep, I knew I would wake up to you.

That there would be a last kiss, and neither of us would know it was the last.

A last hug that didn't linger long enough.

A last time holding your hand before we let go and never reached for each other again.

I thought our ending would come with decades behind us. Gray hair. Wrinkled hands. A lifetime of memories piled between us.

I never imagined I would have to grieve someone who was still alive.

Never imagined I would miss your voice while knowing it still existed somewhere in the world.

Never imagined that the person I loved most would become someone I could no longer call mine.

The irony is that I was right all along.

There was a last kiss.

A last hug.

A last time I held your hand.

I was just afraid of the wrong ending.

And if I had known how our story would end, I still would have loved you.

We got out first apartment.

We never danced.

I packed everything. I did the unpacking. I did all the cooking. All the cleaning. All the caring. All the loving.

You spent most of your time blocking out the world.

Laying in bed under your blankets, nothing beyond your phone screen able to catch your attention.

I did everything for you.

in 2025, i learned that rock bottom has a basement.