maybe we'll cycle like seasons

Summer never came this year.

It got hot, uncomfortably so, and you would call me every Thursday like clockwork. Like always. But the taste in the air was different, so were the things you would say to me.

I spent the long nights, curled in my front window, watching the fireflies flicker in the yard. Letting them blaze and die before my eyes until I couldn't pretend to be okay doing this anymore so I would pull the curtains shut and hang up on you. Hang up on the only semblance of normalcy to split up these warm days.

The sky was pinpricked with stars--always brighter in the warm evening air and the lawn was sprinkled with violets again. Everything was as it should have been. Even the sting of sunburned skin against sheets as I crawled into bed each and every evening. The only thing that had changed was this year, you weren't here, and so for me, everyday would be as cold and empty as winter.

--

I never thought of the last time I saw you as a goodbye. I should have been better prepared though. I should have thought of every minute with you as a farewell, because then maybe I wouldn't have taken you for granted. Maybe I would have been expecting it when you and I came to an end.

--

I can hear the obligation in your voice every week when we speak. We're just two people who have been in each other's lives for so long that we don't quite know how to let go. But the day will come, and this time I'll be ready. This time I hope it's in December so that the chill in my feelings will appropriately match the weather patterns. I don't think I'll ever get over you.

--

Since we've been apart, I feel like ice has frozen inside my veins.

I know it's not appropriate to miss you like this. But I do. It's always after one am when I've been drinking too much, that I'll reach for the phone. Your voice is the only thing that could sound so familiar after such a long absence. You always pick up on the first ring and you never ask why I am calling.

I wonder if you already know. If you know that even though I'm the one that broke your heart, I can't get over you. I wonder if it makes you happy in a vindictive sort of way. I wonder if there's another girl in your bed tonight. If I should feel guilty. I always do, because half of the time, when I place these late night calls, it's from the hallway of another boy's home--one who would love me even after every mistake I've made, but I'm in the habit of wanting the things that are the worse for me. And you would be so awful, so I want you. Badly.

I miss you being a part of me. I miss you knowing me. I miss feeling something.  

--

So on this night, when you picked up the phone, I asked you if you remember when you used to tell me that you wouldn't know what to do without me. I could hear the hesitancy in your voice when you answered yes. I could almost taste it through the static connection, that's how thick your discomfort was as if you could tell where this was leading. As if you felt guilty for lying.

So you also remember when I told you that you would go on living the same way you did before you knew me?

Again, the answer was hushed and tired. Yes.

And you would say "I didn't know what I missing then."

Mhmm. Your replies were getting shorter more distant. I wondered if this would be the last time I talked to you. If I was ruining it. The best way for us to stay talking is to pretend we never loved each other, but I couldn't stop. I needed to know.

So who was right? After all this time? Please tell me I was wrong.

My questions were met with an empty dial tone. You get tired of me now. I get tired of me too. Maybe we won't speak for a while. Maybe life will just go on. Maybe I was right.

But I wish I wasn't. I just want someone to answer me how after all the promises and expectations and just general misconceptions, we ended up here? In the same places we were before. Living the same lives. Picking up exactly where we left off as if what we had was just a hiccup in the natural progressions of our lives. As if the biggest thing to ever happen to me meant nothing.  

I don't ever want to think of you like that. As something inconsequential. But it hurts even more to know that I will always love you in the back of my mind, long after the memory of your face has gone. Maybe pain is just a permanent fixture in everyone's lives. Maybe it proves that at least we got hurt trying to live.

But honestly, I'm not sure if love is worth any of this and if summer will ever come again.

I already miss it. I already miss you. I already miss me. And we've all just begun to fade.