Laying on my back porch, I take in the night’s beauty. Dark blue skies dotted with hundreds of stars, which seem to move and twinkle like fire flies during the summer time. Taking a drag of my cigarette, I use my free hand to reach out to them, drawing imaginary lines between them; “Connect the Dots” was always my favorite growing up. As I stare, more and more stars come out to join the fun, plus a few planets. Mars was always my favorite when I was little, mostly because it was the easiest to spot seeing that it glows slightly red. If it was up to me, I would make it night all the time… I would never tire of staring up at this mystical abyss.
Though I love night’s like these… they often bring back bad memories… as they do now. It was a little over a year ago that I met him, it was a little colder than it is tonight, but beautiful none the less. We held each other the whole night: throughout the entire performance (known as the Rocky Horror Picture Show), the car ride home, walking to my dorm room, climbing into bed. It shocks me… thinking back to it… I thought that should be the most memorable time in a girl’s life, but for me it’s a blur. I do not know how we got there… to that point… where I thought it was a good idea… that I was ready.
“Are you sure?” is the only thing I remember him saying. Such a loaded and complicated question, but at the time, only one word rang through my mind. I wish some of the thoughts that are running through my head now… ran through my head then. “Was I ready?”, “I barely know this guy”, “Not saving it for marriage, but shouldn’t I feel more for him?” I forced myself to feel more, to make myself feel better, I told him I loved him… which I didn’t, nor did he love me… but we exchanged the meaningless words in an attempt to make better of the situation. He knew what I was, he knew what he was taking from me… he thought I wanted this. At the time, I did… for some reason I wanted to get it over with… but if I waited eighteen years for someone, why was I so willing to give up something I could never give back. Yes, we grew to love each other… in time we thought we would last forever, I wanted it to last, but nothing ever lasts really… everything comes to an end. I do not even know if we really loved each other… at the least, we cared for each other… but maybe not love.
Going back through the months we were together, thinking of all the things I did wrong, all the things I could have done to prevent our heart wrenching break. There was nothing I could have done, but maybe… if I had just said no to probably the most important question that I have ever been asked, maybe things would not have ended the way they did, though they would have ended. We were not right… we were toxic to each other, well, he was toxic to me. But maybe, if I thought more clearly… I wouldn’t have made such a big mistake.
You can’t turn back time, I know this… it is pointless to wish that things happened a different way or turned out differently. What’s done is done, and over the years I have come to accept that fact. I try not to dwell on the past, but with this… of everything that had happened in my life… if I could choose one thing to change, I would have changed my answer to his loaded question.
The night sky comes back to me… my hand still cuts through the crisp air, connecting the shining dots that seem so far away. Moments like these… make me think back to when I was young, I wanted to fly. More than anything, to be able to jump and move through the air… joining the moon and the stars, for just one night.
