"I remember everything."

last December, I met my boyfriend. not for the first time, mind you, but in person. we had met online that October, i was 17 and he was 18. we both lived on the literal other sides of the country. i had been in long-distance relationships before; in fact, they’re all i’ve EVER been in, so i didn’t have high hopes that this one would be terribly different. then all of a sudden he had a play he was doing at school and my birthday was coming up and i got on a flight from NC to WA.

i had never been in this city, let alone this state. he lived in this very humble town, where the city was accessible but you could feel like the only person in the world if you wanted to. i remember the night we first embraced. he was standing outside his house, wearing a white coat. i ran to him for the best hug of my life. whenever you hug someone, there’s always some sort of social circumstance keeping you from giving that hug 100% effort, you have to keep your distance to an extent. but when you’re this deep in love at this age, you aren’t afraid to truly feel someone in your arms. i asked if i could kiss him and he said yes and we kissed.

i had my first time with him. there’s no real detail to go in; it was less awkward and much more romantic than i had expected.

later that night, we were talking about wanting to sleep together. not for any sexual reason; we both wanted to know what it was like to wake up next to someone you love. i prepared a tear-felt proposition to his mom, trying to sugarcoat a (truthful) proclaimation of my love on top of a request to have him stay in my hotel room, and my mom would be in the room with us so nothing would happen and etc etc and i heard her say something about “fifteen” and “sleepover.” i was too wrapped up in my monologue that i asked her to repeat what she said.

she says to me, very matter-of-factly, “my son is fifteen, and i trust you, but i don’t feel comfortable with him having a sleepover.”

everything shattered. i confronted my boyfriend with this new information. he was apologizing and telling me how scared he was that i would leave him if i knew. i told him it was okay. i ran my hand through his inky-black hair, caressed his smooth cheek with another, drowning in his eyes. they were a dark-chocolate brown. i still loved him, nothing was going to change that, even if everything else changed because of it.

we had a wonderful rest of the weekend. it was an emotional goodbye. i think that’s because i knew things had changed, whether or not for the better was irrelevant. i think i knew we were going to break up three months later and still remain good friends. i think i knew there was no going back from this new dynamic, that my heartache came from not how i wish things were different, but how i knew this is how it needs to be. i think i knew i’m going to find love again, of course, but nothing will compare to the feeling of meeting your high-school crush in the most dreamlike of circumstances, walking around a town you’ve never visited, touching parts of someones body you’ve never touched, hearing words from a voice you never thought you’d hear. i think i knew this was the best possible outcome and that made it hurt. i think i knew that hurt made the memories of a foreign weekend better.

i think i knew.