8

You write me short stories. In a tiny spiral note book and then send them, one by one to me in the mail. The act of doing so makes me love you even more. 

9

We have a habit of running into each other at weddings. I don't attend many but its happened a few times. Once we sat at the kids table drinking cocktails, flanked by younger siblings. Then at another, we wound up together at the after party in someone's hotel room. I don't know why we ever left, but we found ourselves out in the hallway together. Buzzed off the late night and the fan fare. The love. Perhaps the love we had. And left. I realize now that you and I have never graced a wedding dance floor, but that night we slow danced outside the door to the room. You held my hand to your chest and sang softly in my ear. 

10

I sit at a party, holding my drink and feel your hand on my back. We are not together. In fact, you might belong to someone else. 

11

The night I fought with my parents and cried while on the phone with you. It was late and I studied for a test that didn't matter, no matter how hard I tried. I thought I dreamt you calling my name, through my open bedroom window. Only open because it was so late in the school year. No. I heard you. When I opened my blind you were standing in my front yard, under the weeping willow and bathed in the street light. You. You, who had never been to my house walked there in the dark, past midnight, on a school night. When I whispered the question of why, you answered that you came to see if I was ok. You saved me. If only for that one moment. 

12

You walked into the bookstore and calmly roamed the isles, picking up a book now and then, checking them out. You seemed like a man on a mission, albeit not the one I expected. I might not have noticed you at all except that you were at one point the only other person in the store. When I asked you if I could help you find anything you answered, I'm here looking for you 

And you actually were. 

13

The third thing that broke was my heart 

(the most beautiful and sad (and true) thing D.R. ever said to me)

14

I think about the boy who, like in a movie, I stared at across the aisle at my cashier job. Selling and packing groceries. He on my luckiest of days, working the till across from me. We did not speak. But he smiled at me. He was the reason I went to work- besides the fact that I needed the money to go back to school. We did not often get the same breaks, but sometimes at the end of a shift we'd push buggies in the parking lot together. In those grey hot thunderstormy nights. I was embarrassed to tell him I wasn't yet old enough to drink when he finally said a bunch if them were going to the bar after work. Then as luck would have it I was at the fair one night, late in the summer with some friends. I ran into him. We used our tickets to all go on a ride together. Pressed up against the wall of the ride it started to spin. As the momentum grew the pressure forced us back. The spinning made us laugh. I remember him smiling at me. We were both laughing. He reached out and grabbed my hand. Fingers interlocked we spun in the dark. Lights and music blared. We were clung to the wall. Our hands clung to each other. When the ride was over we went separate ways. When the summer was over we went separate ways. I remember the song that played that moment when we crossed paths and something spun out of our control.