wish you weren’t here

I never imagined my recent…wait, can we even really call four weeks ago recent? I guess…recent dalliance with the magnum would be more than it was. I think I was more disappointed that, for all his supposed years of wanting, his desire to woo me seemed to have fizzled out. But the real kiss of death was something that came out of his mouth… (actually, there were a lot of deal breakers that came out of his mouth)… but there was only one that made me wish none of this had ever happened:

He brought up a mutual acquaintance, one he knew I’d liked, and suggested that the two of us must have slept together… And then the name of this man brought up his visage and the memories and the same feelings flooded back as viscerally as if the scab had been ripped off to expose an open wound. He was all I could think about, even as I still think he’s a fool! And I still think he’s a far better man than the one I was lying next to at that very moment and, suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get the hell away from there and never come back.

Thing is, this mythologized man is someone I wrote about a couple of years back:  I wrote about how he had an uncanny knack of bypassing all my defenses, making me feel soft and sweet inside, coaxing out the very best in me and enabling me to relinquish control — and all we’d ever done is talk, hug and kiss. We’re creeping up on two years since that kiss and, despite fights and hurtful words and disparate values, I still feel that way. He still occasionally visits me in my dreams.

I texted him a few days later to see if he wanted to grab a beer before the holiday break ended, and he said he was flattered, but seeing someone, and that he’d bought his children a dog for Christmas. Four weeks have passed. My heart still aches.

I’ve since deleted our text history and his contact information. It’s a move meant to cut the cord for my own emotional health and self preservation. And my heart still aches to feel that feeling that, in more than a decade, I’ve only felt when with him. And, perhaps even worse, I wonder what is wrong with me that I can’t move on?