With every red light, every white car that looked just like yours, every time I passed Warner Street, every left turn I made onto your old road, I prayed you'd say it. With every passing autumn whose leaves drifted to the ground, every single winter whose temperature mimicked the cold in your eyes, every warm spring that brought your touch back to my imagination and every memory that came flooding back from the summer, I hoped you'd realize. With every morning sun, every depressing moon, every drop of rain, every flake of snow, I wanted to hear it. Every Christmas tree decorated with the ornaments I bought, every Thanksgiving where my seat at your family gathering sat empty, every person from your church on Easter that asked where I was, every firework that lit up the July night sky just like it always would light up my eyes, I was hoping you would remember. Every crashing beach wave, every winding road in the mountains that we always drove too fast around the curves, every lonely interstate that lead us to Houston, every time Lightwave departed from that dock making it's daily trip over to the shores that lead up to that lighthouse, I wanted the flashback to take you back where we existed in those moments. Every time the wind combed through my hair, every stream of the sun's heat that excited your skin, every cool breeze that danced through your clothes, and every single breath you breathed that whited the air, I needed the thought to cross your mind. Every steak you overcooked on the grill, and every pancake I burned on Saturday mornings, every sunset in St. Thomas, and every tossed nickel in the well, I wished you'd recall in rememberance of me. But you didn't.
Time passed. You faded.
I drifted away. I became anew. I escaped.
Then, there it was four years later on Wednesday around 2 pm, you waltzed into the sunlight of my new life and you apologized. Four years. The words I retraced, replayed, ran around, rearranged, threw away, revived, restated millions of times in my head all those seconds of each day were real. They finally were real. All the days when lonely were the times my thoughts circled around you, the words I'd been longing to hear, I heard. There it was standing right there in front of me, but I couldn't reach out to meet your words. It was gone. There they were flowing from the tip of your tongue, streaming from your lips into my ears, gunning straight into my heart. But they continued right through my veins and left as quickly as they had came. In that glimpse of a memory I always tried to create in my head, I just stared into your soul, but I didn't feel a thing. Thank you for never saying what I thought I deserved to hear back then. Thank you for saving me while trying to save yourself. Thank you because you let me love me without even knowing what you were doing. Thank God for your apology coming just a little too late.
xo
-A
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