The One That Got Away

Surely my brain couldn’t have understood what was in store for me. For us. How could it? It was just thirteen years old at the time, and his, well, was half a decade more mature than mine. It was an innocent, wholesome love. It had to be—I was still innocent, still young. He was too, but maybe with just a smidge less of innocence than me. Nothing to fuss or worry about—it was just the right amount that gradually gets lost as the years begin to tick away. He had no ill intent towards me by any means. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Although, in my mid-twenties I was able to see why my parents were upset when they found out about our romance. An older boy? That their daughter met on the internet? On freaking World of Warcraft? That’s not one you hear every day. And the thing was, he was only two states away. I wanted him closer. He wanted to be closer. 

I remember the secret conversations we had for hours at a time over that chatbox. Then over microphones. God, the first time I heard his voice I nearly just melted into nonexistence. The process was slow—we talked for hundreds of hours, only for thousands more to follow. How sweet and painful those many moments were. I earned the title as his best friend. I knew deep down he was mine, too. He knew me better than nearly any person in my real life. But how could that be? How could a complete internet stranger know me so well? I guess unless you’ve been there, it’s something that can be easily judged.

I remember the first time I saw his picture when we finally gathered the courage to exchange Myspace information. I braced myself to finally discover what the guy behind the keyboard, the guy behind the voice who I had grown to care for so much, looked like. When his profile popped up on my screen, I nearly had a heart attack. I felt my blood run cold, but from complete shock rather than fear. My eyes doubled in size and the breath was stolen from my very lungs.

I had dreamt about him, about that exact picture, about that very second, way before I ever knew of his existence on this earth. My subconscious mind had foreshadowed that very moment as I slept months before actually virtually meeting him. But how could that be? How was it that I had deja vu about the moment I opened up his picture, about someone that I never met? I just chalked it up to truly being a connection like no other.

It was an unexplainable love that aged beautifully, like cheddar cheese and cabernet sauvignon. He made his way into the depths of my heart that grew ever so big for him with each passing day. I dove into his too, and we filled each other up with something neither of us had ever experienced before. He easily became the best friend I had ever had in the world. 

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t rocky along the way. At that point, we still hadn’t actually even met in person yet. I don’t blame him for the times he left. For those nights where I was alone and anxious, my phone completely dry of his messages, my mind drowning in the thought of him and where he was at that moment, a gut-wrenching experience brought on by abandonment. I didn’t understand why he would do such a thing to me, to the person that he said he loved more than anyone else in the world. It wasn’t until it was my turn to be eighteen, nineteen, and twenty years old that I was able to reflect back and appreciate the uncertainty those ages bring. Despite his love for me, I was a distraction at the time. A girl on the internet that got in the way of his real-life connections. Life was just beginning for him and he needed to figure it out. It’s understandable. 

But for each time he left, he always came back to me. The inevitable I miss you so much message would appear a month or so later, and the engine would start up again as if it never turned off. Our time spent apart made us feel incomplete, like something was missing. Being without each other just simply didn’t make sense. 

A little over six years later, when I was nineteen (almost twenty) years old, it finally happened. He drove across state lines with his best friend to finally come to Los Angeles to meet me for the first time, face to face. I drove to our meetup place, the hotel that they were staying at. An anxious mess along the way, I entered the lobby and found a nice, discreet spot in the corner, scanning the room. And then, there he was.

He was walking across the lobby looking down at his phone, his friend who I recognized from pictures and video chats by his side. My phone beeped and I realized he was texting me. I took a deep breath in, and when he finally turned around and had his back towards me, I got up and began to sneak up on him. The tension in that moment was like no other. Knowing that my eyes were actually seeing him, this time not through a computer screen, was surreal. He had still yet to do the same. Our love as we knew it was about to reach a whole new level in 3, 2, 1…

I tapped him on the shoulder. He swung around and gathered me up in his arms, picking me up while repeating “oh my god” more times than I can count. There was laughter and joy all around.

It had been the most magical week of my life at that point. When it came to a close, tears were shed on both parts, but after finally seeing each other in person we decided that we could make this work. Long distance wouldn’t break us. We’d had an on and off, virtual romance for nearly seven years and somehow the Universe still wanted to bring us together. 

The following month, it was my turn to see him in his home state. I flew to Utah and we had yet another magical week there together. I finally met his family in person over spaghetti and meatballs. Family members walked in that I recognized from his photos over the years, and I was finally able to say hello personally, and shake their hands and receive their hugs. Everything was absolutely perfect. Before I even left Utah, we were already making the next plan to see each other. But things changed when I got back to California. I changed. 

Working two (and at one point, three) jobs at the time, my life became more hectic by the day. I was trying to make up for the fact that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and wasn’t convinced that boxing myself into a specific career by going to college was right for me at the time. I was trying to make enough money to feel stable and to even pay for my next trips to Utah. But my hours ran thin as I ran back and forth between jobs and responsibilities, leaving him to feel a bit neglected. Texts I woke up to in the morning would read, I feel like you don’t love me anymore, or, I feel like we don’t talk as much as before. I tried explaining that it wasn’t the case, that I truly felt pressured with my schedule and trying to figure out what was going on in my life. But after a while, I couldn’t convince him, and I realized that we couldn’t go on this way.

I had to let him go. It wasn’t that I wanted to—but as I was growing up I realized that I needed to. Being five years older than me, he had more time to become more established while I was just starting out. He already had a stable job at that point, he knew what he wanted to do, but I was still figuring out what I wanted and needed to do. In an effort to find the answers, I drowned myself in work straight out of high school looking for some direction, and that left less time for him, for us. As much as I loved him and wanted to be with him, I could see that my absence was hurting him, and the pressure just grew to be too much for me.  

We tried to remain friends for years. We’d check in with each other. But behind every friendly text was a longing and a sadness. I was there when he needed to vent about his relationships after me. I couldn’t understand why they would treat someone so amazing so badly. He was there asking me about my travels and how life was. After a while, we went a couple of years without saying a single word to each other. It hurt too much.

Then I finally reached out. I thought about him all the time, even if it wasn’t necessarily romantic. But I missed him. I missed my best friend. I asked how he was doing throughout the crazy pandemic and he responded saying how happy he was to hear from me. We caught up on a 2-hour long phone call. At one point he said he started to learn Portuguese, and when I enquired as to why he chose that language, he began telling me about a Portuguese woman he had met, and as I listened to him talk about her, I knew then. I didn’t say it out loud to him, but knowing him, I knew he was going to marry her. 

And so he did. About a year later, the proposal pictures appeared on Facebook, then two months after that, the wedding pictures. I felt happy for him. He looks very happy. 

Everything is different now. Everything has changed. Ever since he got married, I stopped reaching out as much, and noticed the same from him. And that’s okay. Life goes on, and I’m sure he’s living his life to the fullest with his wife. As long as he’s happy and healthy, that’s all I can ask for. It actually makes me think of the scene in Eat, Pray, Love where Elizabeth and Richard are talking at the Ashram in India, and he tells her: “So miss him. Send him some light and love every time you think of him, then drop it.”

Despite the time, distance, and circumstances, I will always believe that it was a connection like no other. A soulmate, but not in a romantic sense. If past lives really do exist, then we were important to each other in one of them and we found our way to each other in this life, even if nothing more was meant to come from it. I know this because of our history. I know this because he’ll still reach out to wish me a happy birthday, a merry Christmas, and wish me well.

The last time he checked in on me, I shared that a couple weeks prior I had a dream that he, his wife, and I were all roasting marshmallows and talking with a bunch of people at a gathering. The strange thing was his response; he said that in that same time frame, a couple weeks back, he and his wife actually were at a barbeque and everyone was roasting marshmallows. 

Sometimes I still dream about him. In a recent dream, he got onto the bus that was conjured up by my subconscious mind and sat right across from me. We just looked at each other, no words exchanged, but a comforting feeling came of it. Nothing was verbally said in the dream, but the gaze spoke volumes. I woke up feeling a little sad.

At the end of the day, I just miss my best friend.