there were these glimmering moments of possibility.

we were in my room, the blue LEDs were on, we had been laughing about something. a real laugh. a kind of laugh that i hadn’t shared with anyone in a while. you were the only person i spent extended amounts of time with for a while.

we were laughing. you’re sitting on the end of my bed looking down at the floor. i’m standing in front of you, looking down at you. you look up at me and say

“no one knows we’re here right now”

sometimes the secrecy felt good. what we had was just ours to share. and that made it special.

i don’t remember what i responded.

maybe i smiled down at you. maybe with a half frown, eyebrows raised. the facial expression of “damn.”

then you said

“one day they will”

there was this idea, somewhere far, far away, that one day things would be different. that whatever was going on between us would be known to the world.

the idea that one day, maybe just maybe, things would be different was my North Star.

i wanted to believe in you so badly. i wanted to believe that one day i’d be enough for you to want to work on yourself so that we could be together. for real that time.

one day they will.

one day they will.

one day they will.

i tried not to focus on these words too much because i knew they were unrealistic. but part of what held our relationship together was the idea that the future between us would look different from the present. so maybe if i stayed in the present a little bit longer, we’d make it to that future.

i understand now that “one day” was never going to come. i always knew that “one day” was never going to come. but there was still that part of me that couldn’t help believing in the fantasy.