I am so over getting over you. I've been doing it for years and honestly, I'm starting to think it's one of the things I'm just naturally bad at. Every morning I wake up and think, this is the day I'll be free, and then I see a toothbrush or a shadow or my own stupid face in the mirror, and I'm right back where I started. t's embarrassing how little I've moved on.
You're it. The person. Like the capital-letter kind. There's no denying it anymore, even though I've tried. God, how I've tried. You're the person I measure all other people against, it's unfair to them, really. They walk in and say something like "I prefer dogs over cats" and I think Well, she would never say that. I can't stop doing it. You're the standard, the ruler, the whole damn measuring tape. And I am so tired of pretending otherwise.
I'm tired of pretending I haven't replayed every glance, every half-smile, every second of us that felt like it might have been real. Tired of pretending I don't ache for the sound of your voice and the way it softened when it was just us. I'm tired of pretending I didn't see the way you looked at me. - That look wasn't nothing. It just wasn't. You didn't look at anyone else that way. - Tired of acting like I didn't notice the way you stood closer to me than you had to. Tired of convincing myself your laughter around me wasn't different, wasn't softer, wasn't ours, and of convincing myself I was just imagining things. Because I wasn't. I was someone to you and I know it. I'm done acting like the way you looked at me was just a coincidence. Like we weren't a little bit extraordinary, even if only for a moment. You've always been the person, no matter how many times I've tried to swap you out for someone else — someone easier.
When you disappeared, it felt final. Like a door slamming shut, a light going out. I thought, That's it. That's all I get of you. I cried in grocery store parking lots, in bed, in the shower while the conditioner sat too long in my hair. I cried so much I got bored of crying, which is a weird thing to feel. But now? Now you're back and I don't know if it's luck or destiny or just dumb coincidence, but I want to believe it means something.
I thought you were gone forever and now you're here, or at least close enough to count as here and I get to hope for you again. Do you know how wild that feels? Like winning the lottery and finding out it's not cash, it's something better — time with you. I'm so grateful - stupidly, deliriously grateful for it. And yes, maybe it will hurt. Maybe I will embarrass myself, but I want to hope now.
Honestly, what's left to lose? I've already made every mistake in the book when it comes to you and maybe I'll make a hundred more. But I'd rather make those mistakes, one after another, than sit here wondering what might have been. Hope, when it comes to you, feels like the highest, purest thing I've ever touched. If humiliation is the price of trying, then fine: Here's my dignity. Take it.
If it hurts me, it hurts me. If it crushes me, it crushes me. I don't want to be practical or logical or whatever else it is people tell you to be when the person you love doesn't love you back. I want to hope. For you, I'd fall flat on my face a thousand times and then I'd get back up, knees scraped and teeth gritted... because I know you're worth it.
I just want the chance to show you who I am now. Even if it's only once. Even if it breaks my heart all over again. Even if it's just for one day, one conversation, I want you to see me. To see who I've become. The real me. The one who never stopped looking for you, even when you weren't there. I've become someone you'd recognise and also not recognize, someone you'd be curious about. I've been out in the world and now I have stories and scars and things I know you'd find fascinating, if you'd just let me tell you. You'd look at me and see someone you could sit on the floor with - our knees touching while we talk about everything and nothing until the world fades out.
I'm not a little kid with too many feelings and nowhere to put them. I think you'd be impressed by the way I walk into rooms without apologizing anymore, the way I know things now, the way my hands look now when they're doing things that matter. I wish you could meet the person I became without you, for you. A person who loves you so much it's ridiculous. And you'd probably laugh at me, but that's okay, too. I like the sound of your laugh. Even when it's not for me.
Maxi Merlin














