It’s been five whole years, and a lot has changed, but not the regrets I feel. 

I’m with another now, but you creep in my thoughts every now and then and shock me awake like cold water to the face. Guilt always follows. You aren’t supposed to come home with me anymore.

I wanted you to tell me that you cared about me by pulling away and hoped you would notice. Stupid me. Silly, immature girl. it only back-fired in the end. So I was angry when you didn’t chase me and I moved on. 

The anger faded this year and was replaced with longing. What nags at me is what could have been. The break felt so clean – no tears, no drunk texts, no begging, no pleading. It was peace – a sensation that one minute you were there and the next just a ghost I had to will myself to forget. But I haven’t forgotten. I want to tell you that I wish we had met sooner. I wish I had told you sooner how I felt about you – so we would have had more time. So there would be more memories for me to replay over and over again when I see a rushing river or stand upon a mountaintop. 

So why five years later? Why now, when we are thousands of miles apart? I want to write a letter, call you, anything to hear you speak just one last time. I don’t know where you are. You’re still the ghost. Tell me why you didn’t chase me. Did you even want to? Maybe if I knew you never meant to keep me, I’d move onward…forgetting you again for another half decade.