Prompt #8

The first time I met him was just the first time – not the best.  We were on a river trip, what a place to fall in love!  He was so gentle, so accepting, so kind.  Exactly the kind of guy to accidentally mislead a girl. 

I met him again a few weeks later, and we spent more time together.  We became friends, and I saw things he didn’t notice that I was noticing.  Like the genuine interest he took in kids, like the love in his eyes when talked about his parents, like the joy his laugh always gives to others. 

We didn’t see each other for months after that.  My heart turned to him though, and my thoughts always seemed to circle back to him eventually.  I prayed for him often – that he would be strong, stay true to our Heavenly Father, that he would be happy.

Then we met again.  It was so good to see him again.  We went on a road trip together, and it reminded me of why I had fallen for him.  He’s such a genuine person, one of the best people I know.

A few weeks after we had been reunited, I watched him take an interest in her.  I slowly stepped away from them.  She looked into his eyes and he looked into hers.  After only three weeks they became a part of one another.  I saw him in love, and it was then that I saw that he was never really in love with me.

Someone once said that trying to write a love song when you aren’t in love is like faking a smile when you’ve given up.  You can’t write while consciously lying - people will notice.  So excuse me if my writing has been dismal, but he fell in love with someone else.  And if I could have one wish I don’t know what I’d wish for anymore, because he got his wish without me.  

I never got close enough to him to tell him all that I thought of him.  He never got close enough to me to know what I felt for him.  If I could have, then I would have told him that his laugh is amazing, and his smile is too.  I would have told him that my best and worst poems are written about him.  I would have told him that he's the reason I began to believe in love again.  He's the one that made me break my vow to never get attached.  

Looking back, I now know that the first time I met him was the best.  We were together on that river trip full of laughing and tears, bravery and fears, firesides and moonlit nights.  If I ever see him again now, then I’ll see her hanging on his arm with a smile.  That girl that gets to tell him everything she feels.  And who knows, but next time she may have a ring.

I thought that in time things might have become close between us.  I hoped that maybe our best days were ahead of us.  I know better now, I should’ve seen that it was just a dream from the beginning. I should've known that he would slip away.

But in the end I’m still glad that we had that first time, our best time, together.