It Was Always You

He never stopped feeling her light, even when silence, lies, and years tried to dim it, because deep down it was always her.
Reading Time
2 min 30 sec
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Title
It Was Always You
Author
Anonymous
Date Published
September 8, 2018
Categories

I didn’t talk to anyone
Not when they died
Grief sat in my chest like a locked room
No windows
No air
Just weight
And I lived inside it for years
Without letting anyone in

And in the middle of that silence
You were suddenly his
The teammate
The loud one
The coach’s son
He made noise
You made meaning
And when you stood beside him
The signal broke

I didn’t understand it
Not then
Not now
It felt like watching you hand your light to someone who couldn’t even hold it
And I would’ve never done that to you
Even if we weren’t us anymore
Even if it had been years
There are lines I never would’ve crossed

But before that
There was him
The other one
The one who told me lies I didn’t question
Said he’d been with you
Said it like truth
And I believed him
Without asking
Without looking at you
And that was the moment I lost you
Not because you left
But because I didn’t stay

We sat side by side
Your Freshman year
Assigned seats
Fate had a sense of humor
You’d laugh quietly
Try to hide it
But I noticed every time
Your brown eyes gave you away
Like sunlight slipping through the blinds
Warm
Certain
Unforgettable

I remember singing to you
Pretty Brown Eyes
Not just because it fit
But because it was you
That was me
Trying to speak
Without saying too much

I watched you become
From shy to steady
From soft to sharp
From the girl who tucked her voice inside notebooks
To a woman who walked the halls like she finally believed her own fire

We tried again in college
And lost each other again
Life got in the way
Schedules, timing, silence
But you never left my memory
Not once

When you told me years later
That the one who broke us
Had lied
Had wanted you
Had made sure I walked away
It hit me in a place I didn’t know was still sore
Because I realized I let you go
Based on someone else’s story
And I never gave you the chance to tell yours

Still
You were always there
You showed up without a spotlight
Kept the stats
Filmed the plays
Documented moments that no one else saw
And somehow
You kept pieces of me
Even when I didn’t know

You never chased the light
You were the light
The kind that stays on after the crowd leaves
The kind that doesn’t flicker
The kind you come home to

You think I didn’t feel you
But I did
You’ve always been in the background
The voice I didn’t deserve
The presence I didn’t fight for

It was supposed to be you
And sometimes
When everything is still
I remember
And I wonder
If there’s still a page between us
Waiting to be read

Because it was always
you

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