I've been chasing her ever since she left. That's the problem; I wasn't chasing her before. It's easy to take things for granted, expect her to wake up next to you tomorrow morning, text you every day when you have nothing to talk about. She fell out of the sky and I treated her like any gift you don't deserve and didn't work for.

She tried, she definitely tried. She would sit on the edge of my couch while she sat on her calves like she always did, frustrated, trying to figure out the guy she had invested everything in. I wasn't having it. I would act like I didn't notice, didn't care. I didn't stop and realize that a lack of interest in a woman was just as fucked up as cheating on her.

So here I am now, and I still feel my lungs tighten every time I look at my phone and she's texted me. Here I am after all this time and I still can't stop smiling when she Snaps me and I hear her voice; asking if I'm okay, if I doing better, telling me that she misses me…

I hate that she still has the hold on me, but it's a hold of my own making. I guess I could let go, but at this point, I'm hooked on chasing something I already had. Old-timers call it chasing the dragon, trying to find that high again. The dragon I chase has a name though, and it makes it worse.

This isn't one of those self-loathing tirades about the one that got away. Or maybe it is a little, but I don't mean it to be. I think what I'm trying to say is the fantasy of

the next one is just that: a fantasy. I think what I'm trying to say is that you're going to meet that new girl at work or that uppity new co-ed, and you're going to think that she's got what you don't already have. You're going to think that she's got the piece that you were looking for all along. You do you, but let me say: you will never find what you're looking for if you block your own way.