7 Reasons Why I Fell in Love With You (And 1 Why I Can't Anymore)

1) I Fell In Love With Your Courage

I read your stories, and your stories rang with truth. They pierced the static from our mutual friends like the cutting shriek of a siren. I read one of your pieces and slumped back in my chair, whispering, "Damn," with the sort of jealous awe that's reserved for artists.

You took my breath away before I ever met you.

2) I Fell In Love With Your Drive

Following your work drove me to improve my own. I couldn't believe it. I was chasing you in a race without a finish line. Before I'd felt so secure, but you took that from me with every poem, every essay, every chapter of your grand, sprawling, unfinished novel.

I knew that I had to meet you.

You left me with no other choice.

3) I Fell In Love With Our Harmony

And as that never-ending race drove on, our voices mingled, didn't they? This couldn't just be my imagination. When I sent out a piece, it was like shooting up a signal flare, and in time your response would arc into view. Your response always stunned me, but I hoped that I stunned you too.

Our correspondence heated up. Not for each other--not initially, at least. But because we saw the same world. How rare is that? Do you find someone who sees the same world as you more than once in a lifetime?

I doubted it then. I hope I was wrong now.

4) I Fell In Love With Your Eyes

We met for the first time in the geographic middle between us. It was a small-town and an AirBnB with two beds. There were no attractions in the area, so meeting was an admission: I was there for you, you were there for me.

Of course we wrote. We also hiked, and cooked, and watched TV, but of course we wrote.

I wanted to know if I would find that harmony in person. You did too, didn't you? I wanted to know if there was something here.

And the moment I saw your eyes--brown eyes, deep eyes, eyes that I lost myself in again and again--I knew there was something there.

If only it had been the something I thought it was.

5) I Fell In Love With Your Taillights

When our time together wound down, after we'd kissed and cuddled and scoped out the edges of this something that we shared, we had to go back to our normal lives. We had to drive to the same highway, where I would go north and you would go south.

At the edge of town, we stopped side-by-side at a traffic light.

While the light was red, you smirked at me. I smirked back.

It was early. There were no cops in sight.

When that light turned green, you shot off into the dark. I slammed my foot on the accelerator to keep up with you. Only I could never keep up with you, never fully. So when we reached the ramps that would send you south and me to the north, you were still in the lead. I was still chasing you, until I wasn't.

6) I Fell In Love With Our Memories

I thought of that green light again and again. It was so easy to get lost in the rush of chasing you, knowing that I would never catch you. Even now, after everything that's come between us, that memory puts a smile on my face. How could it not?

I still love that moment, trapped in perfect amber.

I love so many of our memories. I only wish that they were enough.

7) I Fell In Love With Our Traditions

Every time we forced our lives to intersect we observed our rituals. The shitty restaurants that we loved because they felt familiar. The way we woke on holidays with nothing but each other on our schedule. The movies that scared me and gave me an excuse to cuddle into your shoulder, and the way I always lied and said that I was trying to comfort you, even though we both knew that you saw right through me.

It sometimes felt like playing a part in a long-running Broadway show: meet the lover. Sometimes it even felt fake. But mostly I just loved performing that role. I miss that role.

I wished I could bring it back, like when the original cast of a show returns for a one night special.

But I can't.

And I want you to know why.

1) I Can't Love Your Taillights Any Longer

It was such a thrill to chase you at first, but I always assumed that eventually we'd hit a moment of breakthrough. In my dreams, sometimes you chased me. In my rational daytime expectations, I imagined that we'd eventually find a slipstream that we could slide into together.

On that morning when we drove away from our first vacation, I watched your headlights pull away from me, and my chest ached to see you go.

I feel that same ache now. Do you?

But I couldn't chase you for another mile. I wished so desperately that I could, and I wished so desperately that I didn't have to, but our roads diverged.

That's that.

I saw other vehicles on my drive home, and you saw other vehicles on yours. Maybe you stayed with a little pod of cars for a while, like animals migrating through the wilderness. Maybe there was even a car that you were willing to chase for a mile or two.

But will our roads intersect again, like they did before?

I can't say. This map is too big and complex for me to see every intersection along our roads. But if it happens again that one day I come to a stoplight, and I look over to see you smirking in that red glow, I hope that I'll be able to smirk back. Maybe then when the light turns green we'll find a different way to drive, or maybe not. But I know that if I get that chance, I'll savor the opportunity to see your eyes once more.