I Still Order Your Favorite Drink

 

The truth is, I consider you my biggest regret. I would look back in life, and see the faces of the men I have loved, lost, and have let go, and I would always pause on your face, and hope that I could delete you. I hope that I could easily pluck you from the synapses of my neurons, put you in a box, and throw you into the deepest abyss I could find.

That’s how much I want to forget you.

But I still order your favorite drink. Why?

If I allow myself to remember the good parts of my time with you, I would remember long walks, photographs, conversations, and sunsets. I could recall them all so easily, it’s like trying to remember that I’m supposed to breathe.

You could easily captivate the interest of people with your brooding, mysterious aura. You had women around your finger because you had a way to make them feel special. You captivated me. And you had me around your finger.

This is not a love story. I repeat, that I am writing this merely to explain why I still order your favorite drink. But I have to start at the beginning. Because that is what storytellers do – we have to make you understand why, and tell you what’s next.

You captivated me. You had a way that always pulled me to you. I could never understand why. All I knew was that you were like a puppeteer – one tug and I relent, one snip of scissors, and I fall.

On and on. It went on. Despite the smarter part of my brain telling me to let go, I couldn’t. When I asked myself why, all I could come up with is “I can’t.” And to this day, I cannot understand.

Then one day, it all became so clear. You never wanted me around. You just wanted someone around. But that someone did not necessarily mean me. And so I decided it was time to go.

It was then that I started ordering your favorite drink.

White Chocolate Mocha with Raspberry Syrup.

I used to hate the sweetness of it. But it was something tangible of you that I could hold on to. Something to remind me of you. You were toxic. You made me hate myself. But I still wanted to remember you.

So each time the barista asked me, “What would you like to have today?”

I gritted my teeth and ordered your drink.

Eventually, I had learned to let go. I had learned to put you where you belong: to my past.

But I still order your favorite drink.

And it is no longer to remember you.

But to remember how much I had loved you, and how that destroyed me. How I loved you, and realized that you never loved me, simply because you couldn’t.

You couldn’t. And it’s not because of me, and it’s not because I am not good enough.

It’s simply because you couldn’t and that closet door remains closed.