i love(d) him…
i remember when the cutting started; it wasn’t over you, though, at least not yet. i’d lost my friend jee due to sheer stupidity and misunderstandings, but you were in the process of losing your friend, too. we would soon need one anothers’ company in order to create the music that served as a distraction from the pain we were inflicting upon our arms and legs in order to avoid the pain in our hearts.
you’ve never really been one to call me at all, especially not out of the blue. then you called me twice in a row - frantic, panicked, afraid. you tried to turn to me to stop yourself from hurting again. i was playing guitar at a dorm show. i checked my phone, saw you rang. i called back, but you had nothing to say. you asked me to play the guitar and sing for you. was that the first time you heard my voice? i could hear your words echo in the walls around me when you said them; “your voice is so beautiful” and then “let’s make music.”
let’s make music.
i love him…
i can feel the “love” part of this fade to past tense as i write this; i can’t recall ever feeling this strongly about him.
fast forward to december of 2008. i’d tried to slowly let my feelings for you slide, but i couldn’t. i texted you to meet me because i wanted to tell you i had liked you. i saw you at the tree in front of my dorm, in the middle of my quad, and when i saw you, i almost died, the thud in my heart from seeing you sooner than i thought cripplingly strong. as i opened my mouth to speak, you took the words out of me. “you’re gonna tell me that you liked me but that you stopped cause you thought i didn’t feel the same but that’s not true because i did, i really did, blah blah blah” but as always, your words never led to anything. nothing.
i love him…
i remember the look in your eyes when i told you i had a boyfriend. “you have a boyfriend?” you said incredulously, your mouth twisting ever so slightly because you couldn’t hide your disgust and confusion and annoyance. to this day, i wonder if it would’ve been any different had i not had a boyfriend. my boyfriend had the annoying tendency to cling to me and call me too much and bring me down too often and i didn’t understand why i was dealing with him when i could have you. but by then, it was too late and i’d broken up with him (partially for you) and then i lost you both. i’d lost you both.
i love him…
i remember wanting you to give me that present that you promised me in hartford. i would pester you in our math class relentlessly as i attempted to flirt with you nonchalantly. whoops. it was when i realized that catching your eye as you walked into our math classroom caused my heart to skip 4 consecutive beats that i realized the problem. i could feel it starting, the growth of a love inside of my heart, a love i mistook for an innocent, temporary crush that i would get over in an instant. i was wrong, very wrong.
i love him…
i remember the day when we first met, when we really met. we were merely freshmen, completely new to high school (and myself being confused in this foreign setting of a connecticut private preparatory boarding school). however, with our being eager and friendly, we sought each other out quickly.
i snuck onto a bus going to hartford without permission the day i met you, sneaking onto it for a language class that i wasn’t even in. there was a chinese festival celebration in the city and i decided to go explore. naturally. we became acquainted on the bus; you wore my favorite green scarf like a turban and we took pictures as we smiled out of the pure joy brought by being in one anothers’ company. once we were in hartford, you and i hung out and we bonded over silly songs, livid complaints, and smiling confessions. i would notice your adorable birthmark, which was awkwardly placed under your lip - one of the many things about you that i would come to love. i remember taking a picture with hanh, a new junior vietnamese girl in our school who we described as impossibly adorable, as we kissed her on her cheeks.
i remember playing with chinese toys and getting food together. i remember getting matching bracelets with certain colored beads, each representing a specific virtue or something of that sort. they both broke.
i remember sneaking away because we thought that the festival was lame. we went to stores in hartford and i remember being perplexed by your sense of style. you told me you were from philly as we walked to get something to eat. we took a picture of our shadows on the asphalt. my love, you were fascinating.
i remember telling you how amazing i was at guitar hero and your begging me to play. i asked you, “and what do i get if i win?” you replied, “a kiss.” i thought i hadn’t heard right, but when i asked you to repeat yourself, you simply said “oh, nothing.” you said that a lot. i kept insisting long after this day was over; “when will i get my prize?” you would always smile and say “don’t worry; it’ll come when you least expect it.”
i remember it all.
