What If We Could Have Been Love?

What if, now bare with me a moment, what if we hadn’t fucked up?

I haven’t thought about what happened in a while. I haven’t thought about what could have been since it almost was. And it frustrates me that I can’t stop thinking about it now. Now, after all this time. After I told myself I was too good for you. After you started ignoring me. After you gave me nothing to work with. After you started pretending like I didn’t matter. After I found someone else, someone whom at the time was better for me.

After closing that chapter in my life, I sit here, wondering what if we could’ve been in love? I sit and I run through the memories in my mind. The good ones, the awkward ones, the painful ones. All the long pauses where it was just you and me, our eyes were locked but no one made a moved. No one did anything. Not in that moment, and never in our time. I think about how hurt I was. I question if my heart was broken. Could a heart even break for someone who pushed and pulled with my emotions but never really gave me anything to work with?

I think about how it seemed as if I had the last laugh. How great it felt when you realized it was too late. And now, part of me feels the pain you felt then. It’s embarrassing, honestly, to think that I’m still caught up on such a thing. On a thing that never really happened. The story with no definite beginning and a tortuous conclusion.

But what if we had fallen in love?

I could’ve shown you all my favorite movies. We could’ve laughed at Monty Python. You probably would’ve made fun of my laugh, I admit, it’s a bit excessive, but perhaps it would’ve been one of the quirks you loved about me. I could’ve cried in your shoulder to West Side Story because the ending always made me emotional. You would’ve pulled me in your arms and reassured me it was all a work of fiction, but I would’ve protested that you didn’t understand.

You could’ve played me more of your favorite songs, even though I would’ve probably told you that your taste in music sucked. You could’ve bored me with your conversations of Pythagoras, but I would’ve humored you because I loved the way you light up when you talk about things you cared about.

We could’ve gone on adventures where I would fuck something up and then you would have to fix it. We could’ve had midnight adventures, causing havoc around town always ending the night at the local diner. We could’ve watched the sun rise and go down watching the passage of time right before our eyes. We could’ve made a world of memories that we would always share together even if we eventually broke apart. We could’ve done this, we could’ve done that, but we didn’t and I’m doomed now, perpetually clueless of what happened between us.

I’d like to believe that when I’m thinking of you and us and what could have been, you are too. You lie awake at night, pondering the events, and rearranging them in a way where instead of those painful moments where neither of us made a move, someone had done something. I’d like to think that we’re all connected in some weird way, where our thoughts and our feelings are intertwined somehow. But we never got far enough to find out.

We fucked up, and now I can’t help but wonder.