We Don't Talk Anymore, But I Still Think About You

It’s always at the most random times or on the most random days that I catch myself thinking of us. Of you. Of the significance of your part in my past. I’ve lived several different lives and grew several years older than the last time our glances shared the same space.

It’s late evening. The sky is that pretty pinkish-purple we both loved so much. I roll along the heated pavement in the same car you know all too well. My windows are cracked, and the breeze plays with my hair. The passenger seat holds onto your memory as much as I do, showcasing the stain from the soda you spilled in it.

I’m driving. I can’t stare at one of the only physical things I have left of you.

Forcefully, I place my eyes on the winding road ahead of me. On the same road we would cruise around on. Late nights. Loud music. Deep conversations. We were just young kids, living life to what we believed was the fullest.

I retrain my focus once again. I’m driving. I have to pay attention.

Pay attention to… the windshield that is demanding I look at it. At the evidence you left behind with your finger. There is your name sitting in the fog that blanketed the windshield, spelled out for me to see.

And at nighttime, when I blare my music and avoid the never-ending emotions that come flooding when it’s dark and I’m alone, the windshield refuses to let me let you go.

It has been several years, and yes, I have changed. As I’m sure you have as well. I’ve changed the way I value friendship. I’ve changed the way I used to victimize myself and pretend I was never the problem — even though I knew I usually was. I’ve changed the way I talk to and treat other people.

But I’m still the me that you once knew. I still laugh at a lot of stupid things. I still care so very deeply about the smallest of things. I still hold some of that fire I would use to confront others when I knew they were being rude to you.

Sometimes I like to think that maybe we’re not as far away from each other as it seems. Maybe you’ve also changed for the better. Maybe the you I always knew is still in there somewhere. Maybe you wonder these things about me.

Sometimes I wish things wouldn’t have ended as abruptly as they did. We were both just kids. You didn’t deserve the pain I put you through, and I didn’t deserve the pain I self-served.

But this is the point. It was a lesson that I had the privilege to learn from. I would have never changed for the better if it wasn’t for you. I hope you changed for the better because of me. Because of what we went through.

I loved you back then, and though we haven’t occupied the same room together in years, I still love you in a sense. Although sometimes I wish we could rekindle, I realize that we were only meant to know the versions of us that lived in that world.

And deep down, I know that the past is best left laid at rest.

We don’t talk anymore, but I still reminisce on the way your presence brought me back to life. We don’t talk anymore, but I see you on social media and stare at your post a little longer than everybody else’s. We don’t talk anymore, but somewhere — in another dimension — we are ugly laughing because you spilled your soda in my passenger seat.