It’s a funny feeling - driving through your hometown post graduation. One that never seems to fade, no matter how many times you return. Familiar yet distant. The memories flood in with every street crossed.
The library you and your friends used to spend hours in after school - laughing, desperately needing to study but never actually completing an assignment.
The parking lot where you cried the day your dream school said no.
The ice cream shop you frequented on warm summer days.
The field where you practiced for hours alongside your teammates.
It’s all there in front of you - an arms length away, yet entirely unreachable.
You get ready for the party you’ve returned for, mentally preparing to see familiar faces. The ones who know you all too well. The ones who’ve seen you through every version of yourself - who know what your emotions mean, sometimes even before you do.
But then you see him. The boy you once loved. And it’s the strangest feeling in the world. You keep waiting, wondering when it will hit you. But it never does.
Those feelings you once had - the way your heart would race when they were near, the missing them even when they were just across the room, the urge to share every little thought, the need to know everything about them - it’s all gone.
Your friends think you’re lying. That you and him will never really be over - because how could you be? You’re supposed to be endgame.
And the look in his eyes says he thinks so too.
But how do you explain that when you look at him, you feel nothing?
You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the feelings to return. But the space in your heart he once occupied, it’s gone now. Consumed by love for yourself, for the life you’re building.
And he’s not in it.
Maturing is realizing ours was never a great love story - it was a childhood love. And it’s over now.
You are an awesome person. Luv infinite.