The One About Life's Joke

Dear You,

Today I was talking to my coworker about you. I told her that I was never told a real reason why you left. I remember you trying to tell me that it was the distance that was too hard. I told you I wouldn't accept that bullshit because I was the one driving almost 400 miles both ways every other weekend just to see you. You never gave me another answer.

I often wonder if the pressure just became too much. We were so young. You were going to be leaving for boot camp soon, you were just about to turn 18, your family was digging  their claws into your back. I was in school, on the other side of the state. But the one answer I will never get is which straw it was that broke your camels back. It's my one regret in life, that I never had the guts to ask you. Even when we were talking again briefly, I didn't want to scare you off by bombarding you with the past. I should have just asked, considering how you one day decided I wasn't worth replying to anymore anyways.

I also told her a secret. Do you think you can keep it? I told her that you are the one person in the world who, if you came back, could make me reconsider my entire life, my entire relationship. I told her I know what kind of a person that makes me. But I can't help it. You were my right person at the wrong time. Sure, I'm happy where I am, and who I'm with now. But it will never be that same high again. You were the drug of all drugs, the trip of a lifetime. And once I came down, no matter how many others I take, I will never be able to reach that same high again. It will be my curse of a lifetime.

I wonder if you think of me, if I'm your one that got away. My mind convinces my heart that you don't. It tells it that you never meant any of it, that you should never have wasted your time. But there is a tiny sliver of hope. It calls out that maybe, just maybe, I was the right person. At the wrong time. I can't quiet it, I can't get rid of it. It's always going to be there. Maybe one day we will meet on a corner, out of chance, and I will get to ask you. Until then, though, I will always be left wondering. And that is the cruelest part of this whole ordeal.

Sincerely,
The Girl