Sometimes when I talk about him the way that I see him changes. He’s one person one second and an entire other the next. Sometimes he smelled like Stetson and tasted like cigarettes and stale beer. Other times he would kiss me and his lips would be salty with droplets of pain that fell from his eyes. I miss the way we used to be when I didn’t know that I loved him and he hadn’t bothered to tell me that I did. I still remember the days when we would chain smoke and ash on the floor.
I wanted so much to love him the way that they talk about in books and quotes that show up all over the internet. In some ways I guess I sort of did; like when it was just the two of us in the cold and we hadn’t said a word in a long time, but it wasn’t a bad kind of silence. We would breathe and the air was so cold that our breath made a cloud and the windows get foggy. He was warm and safe and he would hold me like he really meant something by it. Sometimes I would look at him and he would smile and tell me that he loved me to, and it was amazing because he knew what I was telling him but I didn’t say a word.
Most women passed him by because his features didn’t fit together the way they liked, but I loved his big lips and his crooked smile. His eyes were beautiful and brown and they could see right through all the things that I tried to show him. I remember when he would hold my hand and make me feel safe even when I didn’t know what I was afraid of. There’s a spot on my neck that he used to kiss that would send tingles to a place on my back that I never noticed otherwise, and make my toes curl and my feet go numb. When I was sad he would run his fingers through my hair and it would make the demons that hide behind my eyes disappear for a while.
Since he’s been gone my chest hurts. Not the kind of hurt that can be solved by Tylenol and water, the kind of hurt that’s deeper than physical agony. I went out for a smoke this morning after my mother left. I sat on the porch in my normal spot and chain smoked a couple, and by the time I was done I had been crying for hours but not a single tear had fallen. I was too tired to move on so I just curled up on the welcome mat that sits outside the door and stared at the spaces between the boards. I’ve had enough of being sad and missing him. I’ve accepted that he’s never coming back.
He’s the only person I’ve ever gone to bed next to that has woken up to find me still beside him in the morning. I’m not the kind of girl a man asks to stay the night, but he never asked, he demanded. He was never a peaceful sleeper, then again neither was I. He always moved while he dreamt, which never bothered me a bit. I would twitch and cry when I had nightmares, and he never knew it, but sometimes I would wake up and pretend to be asleep while he ran his fingers through my hair and told me that it would be okay.

Some mornings I would wake up because I was too warm to be comfortable. I would open my eyes and look down to find him curled up around me still asleep. I miss those few minutes where I would just enjoy his lips against my neck and his breath blowing against my skin. I never minded it when one of his hands rested on my hip and the other on my left breast. I regret that I never told him that he owned my heart.
He gave me the key that started his truck, but not the one that unlocked the doors. I gave him my word, but I never kept it. When he left me, or I left him, whichever way it went, I gave him back that key. I miss holding it when I’m not sure if I’m going to make it another second alone.
I’ll never tell him how much I miss him, but I don’t have to. He can see it in my eyes and he can hear it in my voice when I speak. We don’t exchange glances or words, but missing him is a part of who I am and it shows in everything that I do. It’s no secret to anyone that I am not myself because he is what made me who I was, and it’s hard for them to see me as I am now. It’s hard for me to see me as I am now.
That man was my winter and my summer. Now I’m caught in the fall with all the other dying leaves. These days I just focus on breathing in and out and the pain in my chest and my heartbeat in my ears. There is no such thing as happy endings, because not everyone is happy in the end. He’s moved on and she’s beautiful. Her eyes sparkle and she likes to fish and wear camouflage sweatshirts. She’s smokes cigarettes that are just a little different than mine, and she shares them with him and drinks his beer. She is everything that I’ve ever wanted for him and I wish him the best. That doesn’t mean I can ever forget the lover who let me leave.