She’s obviously in love with you.
Everyone can tell. She lived two dorms down from mine last summer and though I’d never met you, I knew every detail of your face, of your personality. She spoke of you so often that I could recite the exact way you mispronounced ‘literally’, I could list off…
This is how we remember that girl who was sweet on us in seventh grade. She had the cutest dimple, the nicest little ass. Then that lanky quiet girl, toward the end of high school. She was real nice, helped with homework, said “Hi!” so excitedly. In college, oh brother. You know? That one girl over in Los Cerritos. What was her name? Kind of dark skin, frizzly hair? She had some nice lips on her, man. She found us at that party one time, she hung on like an ornament. She laughed at everything, smiled wide. She wanted us, but she wasn’t that redhead. The one in the shorts. She wasn’t her. That one girl, Mark’s assistant. The temp in the skirts, batty eyes? Yea, that wasn’t her. The thrift store girl, long dresses, lots of bracelets. Freckles? That wasn’t her. All of them, those girls, what was their name? They weren’t Her.
This is how we gather memories to discuss in old age.
This is how we fight the weight of regret.