Bullet Dodged

I've run the numbers at least a dozen times,

And it always comes back to Prom. Junior year.

(For me, that is.)

Time lined up in sequence like dominoes, ready to collapse inexorably toward the wrong conculsion at the first misplaced touch.

But it didn't.

It didn't, and we're both married to other people

(Happily, I might add,)

Because you didn't ask me to the Prom.

Even though we were a couple,

And though she was in love with you,

The two of you were only friends.

It killed me at the time.

"Oh, woe is me!

My boyfriend asked her to the Prom,

And will I even get to go?"

But the forces of nature,

Of time,

Of God,

Were on my side that starlit evening.

Because I was asked,

And I did go.

Just not with you.

And looking back,

Seeing how desperately I loved you later on,

How long it took me to let go,

How willingly I would have wedded you later—

Much later—

If you'd asked, instead of dumping me hard—

It's frightening to realize how close we came to being the end of each other's stories.

I know, I know.

I can't truly predict what might have been.

But I know how I loved you,

And I saw how you loved me, then,

Way back when.

Way back when we were a couple the first time,

And you took her there instead.

Man, I hated her that night.

But I fell hard for my Prom date.

What can I say? Teenage girls are fickle.

And it put a wedge between you and me.

A wedge that broke us up, eventually,

Even though I came back around to you later.

Even though I loved you so desperately when

Marriage was on the table.

Rather than just the passion of sneaking a moment in the hallway between third and fourth period.

Do you realize what might have happened?

What might have been?

Do you realize that if we'd stayed together,

Stayed in love,

Ever deepening,

It might have been you and me?

But it wasn't.

And it isn't.

And I thank God for that.

And while I wish you joy,

And I pray that you take care of your wife,

Because I love her dearly,

I could not be more grateful for how things shook out.

Thank you.

Thank you for letting me,

Letting "us,"

Go.

Thank you for not surrendering to the wild storm of my adoration.

Thank you,

Thank you,

For asking her to the Prom.