There was a carrot w4m 26 (Broadripple)

You show up suddenly at school or work, so casual in your old man sweaters. My heart stops, for just a moment, and then I don’t know what to do but smile and keep walking and pass by. You must think me cold, or you think me happy in my marriage, or you think that those stolen moments discussing dreams and existential angst don’t mean anything to me. I so fear and dread those moments together, and yet I long for them. I long for you. During Tuesday morning meetings I can’t even glance in your direction for fear I’ll blush and you’ll read plainly on my face what has become etched onto my heart. I wouldn’t mind for you to see spelled out the loss, but I couldn’t bear for you to find the hope written there, only to deny it.

How dare you, J? How dare you sit with me in the car listening to that damn song over and over again and tell me that there was nothing between us? There was a carrot. There was the potential for something rare and precious. It would have been bitter and uncontrollable and cut by such depths of sorrow, but also healed with so much joy. Such passion and joy - we could have had that.

I came home from training, the day you gave me a ride, and I told everyone I was in love. It was a silly statement made by a girl who felt giddy with possibility, but even after all this time I do not think I lied to them.

At the end of the year, please go away from here. Please spend your year preparing for internship somewhere else, where I won’t have to feel my heart stop as I pull into the parking lot and see you walking to your car, where I won’t have to watch you shiver over a cigarette as you tell me how different we are. We aren’t so different, you and I, only I saw the danger and the heartache ahead on the path and thought it worth walking with you anyway.

I know Broadripple is for her. I know it isn’t for me and never was. But it was the first song you sang to me, and I’ve spent too many afternoons in tears over my guitar to give it back. If somehow you read this, I want you to know Broadripple is mine, now, and every time you hear it I hope you think of the injustice you did me by letting fear paralyze you.