A little over 2 years ago – on this very site, surprisingly – I dedicated a song to a boy I barely knew, but who made my heart flutter with the sugar-coated words he strung together like candy on a string necklace. From that moment onwards, I toyed with the idea of someone like you loving someone like me. I remember walking home one morning when I received a text, and when I saw your name flash across my screen I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Good morning, sunshine” you said, and I tripped over my own toes as I tried to stop myself from falling. It’s funny, really – there was a time when I felt nothing towards you. Now I act like I used to when I first fell in love, and I jump out of my skin every time my phone beeps in hopes that it’s you, though it usually never is.

I once told you a story about an old couple I knew, and how I found it tragically sad that they didn’t dance with each other anymore. You pulled me in close, looked at me for a minute, then said, “I promise I will dance with you every single day, wherever we are, whenever you want, forever”. I laughed as you spun me around in the middle of a crowded street. There was a time when I loved you so, so much that a life without you in it didn’t seem like any life at all. Then there was a time when I’m not sure I loved you anymore, when I was 6,000 miles away in a country that couldn’t have been more different to the one you were in, so very far away from everything that reminded me of you. When I think about all those weeks of silence and how I was too busy to send a simple text, or how I vanished from your life the minute I became happy, I’m genuinely amazed you loved for so long. I’m amazed you could love me for so long.

You were truly one-of-a-kind, and it hurts me in ways you cannot even imagine when I think about how I’ve disappointed you, tortured you, and disappeared from your side during the moments when you needed me the most. I will never again find somebody as wonderful, as tolerant, or as perfectly perfect as you, and my only hope is that someday very soon, a beautiful girl who is deserving of you and the love you have to offer will trip over her own toes as she falls into your life. And, while this will probably kill me, I promise I will be genuinely happy for you when you decide that she will be the one who will dance with you every single day, wherever you are, whenever you want, forever.