You promised me starry nightskies...

I’m not sure if you knew - if you ever quite grasped that concept of endless love. I did, and I embraced it gracefully.

It gave me a purpose.

A purpose to wake up for, to live for, perhaps even to die for.

Maybe it wasn’t a noble, or a rather complicated and delicate one, but it was a purpose nonetheless. It had been from the start.

You enticed me fully with those pretty words from that deliciously deceptive mouth. You turned my existence into an universe of begging, and whimpering, and touching. You took everything I had, every beautiful thing I knew, and used it against me. For Us.

Because that was your purpose.

And so we were meant to be together. To love, to hurt, to live. Till the end.

We were - together. Complete.

**

But we were strangers before we kissed. It was magical and yet so completely irrelevant. Nonsensical, you used to say. A brushing of lips that shaped our worlds. Your hand on my wrist, forming a barrier between our hearts.

And we were strangers after we kissed.

**

Looking back on those first few months, I can hardly remember. But our first touches I still feel; the tenderness and hesitation. If I close my eyes and try, I can even smell your damp skin and sense your presence close to me, waiting.

I always made you wait. Not because I knew how it made you feel - so pathetically insecure. But because I thrived on that sense of anticipation, that lingering need. Need. Not lust, never lust. Not quite love. Not yet, anyway.

Just an endless, passionate need.

Those memories seem bitter-sweet. Trinkets from our past, locked away like deeply burrowed treasures and only occasionally revisited, to make sure they're still there. But now... now you are so far away, and I can't help but grasp for our last illusions of happiness, of quiet.

It's ironic, I guess, how those memories always end up hurting so much more. Easier to think of the pain, the arguments, the tears.

**

Your face was pale. Salty lips. You disgusted me. Bile rising in my throat, bitter, burning. Acid. You betrayed me.

‘I didn’t think...’

Your soft skin I had caressed lovingly so often, I now imagined torn and ripped.

‘It didn’t mean anything!’

Your eyes, your lovely eyes that used to look upon me with such desire - clouded, hidden, and I wondered if they’d still be beautiful if you’d cry red tears.

‘Oh God, I’m so incredibly sorry.’

You’d look mesmerising, your exquisite fragility framed by purple bruises.

‘Please, just say something...’

I felt cold, inside - ‘I’m going to break your heart.’

**

Of course, that wasn't where it ended. I loved you too much for that. But finally, I started fighting against you, against Us.

I would come home, drunk, laughing when you'd worriedly pass me a glass of water. Or I'd wake you up, stumbling in long past midnight, ignoring your pale, haggard form in the doorway, and refusing silently to tell you where I had been. Some nights, I didn't return to you at all. The thought of you waiting for me filled me with a burning sense of satisfaction.

**

No. I don't want to remember. I was so naive, my conviction of your feelings so terrifyingly misplaced. You had deceived me. The night I saw our carefully crafted lie falling apart, I realised.

Not that it was perfect before that. But it was sensible, tangible. It was bliss - in a twisted, wicked way. It was drama, but we needed it. It was pain and hurt, but its startling reality kept us intrigued. Most of all, it was passion, stringing our hearts together.

Our first date had been exquisitely unusual. Previous boyfriends and girlfriends had taken me out to expensive dinners, or had invited me on romantic walks along a moonlit beach. Conversations had been merry and loud, armed with laughter and innuendo.

But you, you took my hand and transported me into our own surreal world, away from words and emotion and meaning. Alone, in a deserted playground, pressed against each other in the twining darkness, we surrendered.

You were my private enigma, an illusion of romance and mystery. One day I would solve you, find the missing pieces and string you back together. Now, all I knew was that you needed me, and that I needed you.

So we surrendered, with the smell of rust and plastic, and our lips - red.

**

Oh, how tempting to lose myself in the past, to search desperately for that one moment where we finally lost each other.

But what if there never was? What if we never really ended? What if we just gradually drifted apart, letting go more of our hopes, and dreams, and expectations with every tacit day?

I still loved you.

Of course I did.

I still do.

It’s too late now, though. Too late to say I’d forgiven you a long time ago. Too late to say that to me, you will always taste sweeter than the moon. Too late to beg you to stay, “I can’t live without you.”

Because I can.

I knew, the moment I found you. And I knew that you couldn’t, hadn’t been able to.

“I’m so sorry…” Holding your head to my chest, rocking softly.

“Don’t let go.” Almost inaudible, a last breath.

And I promised you.

I will never let you go. I will always remember. Because we were meant to be together. To love, to hurt, to live.

Till the end.