It's been a year and three weeks since you broke up with me. I wish I didn't remember that. I wish I could stop thinking of January second as the day you broke my heart. I wish you didn't still linger like the smell of smoke on your jacket or the tingle of my lips the first time we kissed. But here you are.

It's been a year and three weeks since you handed me a letter and drove away from my house for the last time.The present I thrust into your hands before throwing my arms around your neck and for the first time not thinking about how long I was obligated to let you crush me before I stepped away. I wish I could put on the pajama pants my best friend got me again, the one who listened to me cry into the phone for a straight hour after I stopped crying in my mom's arms. They were some of my favorite pants, and they're warm enough for frigid Virginia winter nights. Only now every time I look at them I don't see the silly alpaca's wearing sweaters-- I see the snot that ran down my face and dripped onto my lap before my sister got me an entire box of tissues. This is why I came all the way here from Texas, to get away from you. You're not supposed to be here, but here you are.

It's been a year and three weeks since you said "I've got to go" in response to me saying "I'll see you in class." I think we both knew at that point that the only reason anyone comes to your house at eleven on a Monday morning to just drop off a letter is to break up with you. Only you know how bad it was because we had only been dating for two months and I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. No one had ever been as into me as you were, or if they were I didn't catch on. That's why you were so special. I wasn't some stupid kid like everyone made me out to be after the fact-- we were in this together, and even if you weren't going places, I was. You weren't supposed to get out of our stupid little town, but here you are.

I didn't know you were going behind my back still. Getting high, getting screwed. I didn't want to be close to you like that, but I didn't want to lose you. Who knows if I would've had sex with you that summer before I went off to college. It would've ruined me. I ended up confused and anxious and asexual and terrified and sexed up and if I would've had sex then I wouldn't have been ready and I just think that's one of the worst things we did. Not the borrowing and spending of money, not the canceled dates because of panic attacks and lame excuses, but the unsaid pressure that bubbled out of our four-month relationship. Now every time someone asks me for sex, I inwardly flinch and think of you. I haven't seen you in a nearly a year, but here you are.

The funny thing is you broke up with me and I didn't look at you again and I haven't spoken to you or heard from you or talked about you but here you are.