First Heartbreak

It’s funny how I didn’t realise how much he meant to me until we weren’t together. I didn’t miss him so much until three weeks after, when I saw him laughing and holding hands with a taller, prettier, older girl I assumed was his new girlfriend.  Then, and all the days after, I relieved our whole relationship in our mind.
Starting with our first kiss, behind his best friend’s house. I needed to go home, and he offered to walk me. We were laughing and then he stopped walking. He turned to face me, and without thinking about it, I kissed him. He was so much taller, bigger and stronger so that I felt safe and fragile in his arms. When he drew his face away, he pushed back my hair and told me I was beautiful. We walked the rest of the way in silence, deliriously happy.
I can still picture the texts he sent me in my mind. Poetry sent from one phone to another. It didn’t matter what we were talking about, as long as we were. Any text or call he’d send me, no matter what it said, would brighten up my day.
Sitting on his lap in our mutual friends living rooms, while they talked, laughed and flirted. His arms felt strong around my waist, and I felt I would never be sad while with him. I felt we would be together forever. Everyone else thought so too.
But then, something changed. Not so much the magic disappeared and the happy times ended, so much as the fighting was just so much more common. He would shout, I would cry, he would apologise, and I would reject it. I would attempt to make him jealous, it would work, he’d feel heartbroken and I would regret it.
Despite knowing it was going to happen, I still cried for hours after he finally said he was over me.