This is a jumble of thoughts to match my mind, which is also all a jumble.

I do think that your feelings were true but I don’t know when or where those feelings started. Was it nostalgia for our childhood or just a passing fancy? Could it have been more? This is what I know. Being with you always felt right. It just did.

It was our circumstances that made it wrong. Every time that we shared moments over these past years, there have been other themes at play. Other hearts to be broken. Funny thing is that we always denied them to each other. Every time.

We were cowards. You still are. We do not live in some parallel universe. Neither are we part of some teenage drama where boy meets girl and – despite some ups and downs – find their happily ever after. No. Circumstance says otherwise. In this life, nothing will ever be handed to us on a plate. We must put in the groundwork first. Preparation is key and it was here that we failed each other.

If we were really grown up and truly honest, we would be together now. Instead we are separate and I am so angry with you. It was never going to be easy saying goodbye but how fair is it to play the devoted lover when your heart is clearly elsewhere? Can’t you see that it was for the greater good? Don’t you know that she would have realised it too? This was our Waterloo. This was when we sacrificed each other.

You may feel hard done by because I am singling out your behaviour (ha, perhaps your only act of singledom!) So fine, I am not blameless. I knew the state of play and still chose you – as friends of course. And no, I can’t believe that I’m playing the friendship card either. Me, the biggest advocate of the theory that men and women can never be friends. But please don’t judge me. When you care about someone as much as I did (and often still do), proximity is a must. Despite the trouble that proximity might cause.

It was a joint decision, making the call to be near each other. We made that happen, and it was wonderful. I have never been that happy and I often wonder will I ever be as happy again. Maybe a different type of happy.

I always thought that you would step up to the mark and remember the greater good. You eventually did, and that’s what broke my heart.

I believe – and hindsight is a great thing – that you did, and maybe still do, love me. And that is not a term to throw about loosely. Because even now you refuse to let me go. And god, you are trying. You avoid me. You don’t call me. This works well for you, and mostly for me. But you can’t avoid me forever. You hear rumours, rumblings. And you cannot sit back and let this happen. So you have to get me back. You cannot lose me like you did all those years ago with no goodbye again.

Your name appears. And I am yours in that instant.

FC