Letter 2: What If?

Dear _______,

For three years of high school, we were on the same track team. We would see each other at practice. We would do workouts with each other. We would take the same bus to meets. We would cheer on our team. And at one point, we were team captains together. Yet, we never had a single conversation with one another.

I can not even say that we were friends. We were more acquaintances, to be honest. You had your friends and I had mine. And though we never crossed paths outside of track, I began wondering why we never talked or hung out with one another. Why did I never bring myself to ever talk to you? It did not take me long to realize why- I had the biggest crush on you. I was too nervous to interact with someone I was developing feelings for. I felt like it was too risky to even be around you, so I did my best to avoid you at all costs.

Despite never talking to each other, my mind was racing about you. I would imagine meeting up to study before practice. I would imagine us running laps around the track together and having conversations about how our day was. I would imagine getting back from track meets and asking you for a ride home. I entertained a reality where we went from being amicable teammates to becoming something more than friends. I hoped that a romantic tension between us would manifest and turn into a real relationship.

Soon enough, you were a senior, and I was a junior. And after a long three years of not ever talking, you were finally graduating and getting ready to move on with your life. On the day of graduation, I found myself holding the door for the seniors to enter the auditorium where the ceremony was being held. And to my surprise, you were standing in line. And before you passed by me, you asked for a hug. My heart started beating. This would be our goodbye. So, we hugged for a brief second, and you kept on walking. The years of not talking to one another culminated in a single hug. I was led down a rabbit hole, becoming regretful of all the things I didn’t do. What if I had talked to you the first day I met you? What if I was more open and amicable to you? What if I was a little more confident and asked you to hang out? What if I actually brought myself to actually say something to you?

I know that dwelling on the past isn’t helpful, but it helped me realize something: every single question I asked brought back this image of you I had in my head. It was a version of you that also felt like there was a romantic tension waiting to be cut. It was a version of you that also wanted to hang out and become something more than friends. With that, I realized that the person you actually are is not the same person as the one I created, fantasized, dreamt, thought, and ultimately projected onto you. I was crushing on a version of you that never existed.

So, I do not think it is fair to say that you were the one who broke my heart. Rather, I broke my own heart by creating this ideal yet unrealistic version of you. I fell in love with this idea of you, rather than the person you actually were. And though all of this has passed over, the question still lingers:

What if I mustered the confidence to befriend you, what would we be now?

Submitted by Anonymous