I couldn't figure out why I was so annoyed at the cloudless sky last night. Then I realized it has been a year since that night. The one where you walked me to my car after yet another one of our late work nights. These were weeknights, where everyone else we knew was already in bed but we were wide awake. I would drive 40 minutes to escape the glass house I was living in just to sit an have a beer or two with you. Sometimes, we would watch episodes of 'The last book store', 'Black Mirror' and some other old WWII series you liked; laying on your close enough for the hair on our arms to touch but we never touched. Until that night. The one where you walked me to my car like you always do. I shivered the whole way down the driveway. We stopped on the curb next to Tommy; my bright yellow SUV. You listened to me complain about the clouds and try to point the constellations that were peeking out from behind them. I continued to shiver.
"You're freezing." you pulled me into a hug, trying to keep me warm. I continued talking about what I thought was Scorpio (I was wrong). Your hug was not just warmth, it was calm and safe and all the other things I had been dying to feel. So I kissed you. That was like gravity; like everything horrible thing that had happened was pushing me to this moment.
"Hi." The sound of your voice seemed out of place. I kissed you again. Partly, because my mouth had forgotten how words were made but mostly because it was the best first kiss I have ever had. I am selfish, so I took a second one. Then I got in my car and left.
I swear I thought I ruined a perfectly good friendship but I look back on every moment before and after that night, there were no traces of friendship. There was always something more, pulling us together. Gravity.
There are a lot of things I have learned from this. Like Hope is not always rational. My rational brain can not kill Hope, no matter how hard it tries. That getting over someone is not as easy as getting under someone else. Some people are irreplaceable because they set a new standard for the love you are willing to accept.
I have noticed that the Universe will give you what you want but rarely at a convenient time. As humans, we choose to make it work or chuck it in the 'too hard basket'. Hope can hurt when you know you have been chucked in the too hard basket. Hope can hurt when it holds on too tightly to ideas that the rational brain knows are impossible. Hope also stands for Hold On Pain Ends. So hopefully, like all the other painful things this will end too.