I think a part of me died with you.
Or, a version of me. Like up until that moment I was one person and then afterwards every cell in my body had been replaced by someone I didn't recognize. Someone I'm still unsure of, even all of these years later.
I think about how delicate it felt to love you. So delicate that something always felt just on the cusp of breaking. What would have been if I had loved you more, and sooner? If I had loved you more, and harder? What would it have been like then? Was there a different timeline where I could have changed things? Where I could have saved you?
It's unknowable. The universe keeps expanding and contracting on itself and I am left here, wondering.
I hope there are a million different timelines where I'm somewhere with you, laughing until my sides hurt. Or other ones where I convinced you to stay. Or other ones where you got to live. Or other ones still where maybe you feel proud of me. Other ones where that delicate thing never had to actually break. It never had to bend and twist into grief so absolute that it made me unrecognizable to myself. Other ones where I'm still the me who was figuring out how to love you.
In this one, I love you without hesitation, without fear of it all going wrong. I love you wholly, completely, and I find myself in there somewhere, too, unknowable still but I'm trying. In some silly way, it feels like I am still trying for you.