Parallel.

So we're back here again. We had a brief reprieve, the purpose of which, it seems now, was to simply intensify this feeling of loss. To remind me, as though I could forget, of how difficult this is, how hard it will continue to be.

This time was different. There was no anger, no dishonesty, no unfairness--at least then, if not each other, we had that to hold on to. I still didn't cry in front of him. Hugging him goodbye truly almost killed me. How do you pull away? How do you not hold on for dear life when you know you have to let go? He walked away and I sat in the car for about four seconds, debating on a stationary or mobile breakdown. I decided I just had to drive. I sat there at the stoplight at the exit of the park, begging the light to turn green so he wouldn't walk by. It did, and I watched him in the mirror until he was out of sight. Then I cried.

And it wasn't like last time. There was no wailing, choking, hiccuping type of sobbing. Just tears, the quiet and relentless kind that only come when there is nothing left to feel but sad. When the pain is no longer sharp and shocking, but that dull, horrible ache that you can just tell isn't going away anytime soon. I didn't cry because I was angry or felt betrayed. I cried because this is just the way it has to be, and it doesn't seem fair. It's as though we're on parallel roads, alongside one another, close enough to touch. And that's how it was, how it still IS. He is close enough to touch, and everything about us was good. Right now I'm wondering how he can sleep. How he can find escape, and I'm wide awake? I wonder if he remembers I was supposed to be there next to him tonight? Does he miss it as much as I do? But even the closest parallel lines will never intersect. I don't regret it. Not one second of it. I was so blessed just to be there, just to have been the one next to him, even for a time. I miss him now. I will miss him tomorrow. I will miss him for a long time, and wonder how much more I could have learned about this person I was so lucky to know. He showed me what I deserve, what I can have, and though I can barely breathe without that feeling now, I needed to know it was possible, that it's still possible.

I don't regret it, but I wish things were different. I wish he felt differently, I with I could feel differently. I wish there was a way. Somehow this one got to me, like I knew from the start he would. I knew the minute it began, I'd fall hard and fast. I was safe, and I was happy. God, I wish things were different. And whatever and whomever the future brings me, I will still wish this. Even when, someday, logic and circumstance converge for me, and I see that where I am and who I'm there with are perfectly right, I will still wonder. I will always wonder.