I think what I remember most is how you tugged at my hair.  I know it seems like an odd thing to remember, and something that most people don’t often think about, but it’s what I got from you.

     You’d ring your fingers around my waves, cupping them into an infinite spring, giving little pulls here and there.  It wasn’t painful, and I don’t enjoy pain, so it was nothing masochist about it.  It was just like the feeling you got after swimming all day or being really full from a large meal.  It was a good kind of pain; a comfort.

     That one summer, that summer where I thought I lost everything and you were still with---well that person--that was the summer I realized I could be with you until the day I die.  I don’t think you ponder about that summer, because you were preoccupied, but it’s one of my fondest memories of the two of us.  It was before the two of us were known as “us”.

     I had gotten off work, feeling drained and on the verge of a breakdown when I called you.  You were at the lake.

     It was close to midnight, because even though I claim to be good, I’m awful with directions.  The lake was one that I always wanted to go to, but never felt like the permission was mine to allow.  It was your lake, your small spot in our ever expanding part of town.  But when I finally got there, the lake was no longer a hidden treasure, but a shared paradise. 

     You probably don’t remember, but I gasped when I saw you.  It was such a cheesy way, something that normal people don’t do.  Most people don’t step out of their car, walk towards the lake and see their one and only and gasp.  I couldn’t help it though.  I had never seen someone look so pained and so beautiful at the same time.  I heard people talk about that mixture of the two, pain and beauty, but you were the first person I ever got to experience it with.  It didn’t help that you were basically glowing from the moonlight.

     After about five minutes of me standing there, and you looking at the lake, I made my way down to sit by your side.  And, here’s the big part, the part I hold onto when I feel like I’m about to break, you put your arm through mine, and said, “If we don’t talk, than everything is perfect.”  I still don’t know what that means, but even if it’s years later, I still hold onto that.  I still find an odd comfort in it.

     We spent the rest of the night telling secrets with our eyes and jokes with our grins.  I had begun to fall asleep in the nook of your shoulder, when you started grazing my head.  With every tug and itch, you made your way into my heart.  You twisted yourself into a piece of me even I hadn’t discovered.  And the weird part is that I let you.

     That summer, that clouded memory of pain and confusion, is one that I’ll always hold to.  You, pulling at my hair, pulling at a wish, a dream of what could be, it still makes my stomach leap.  I think about that moment, and I freeze that time, framing it in my mind.