You Were My Favourite What If

My intention was to close this chapter with us finally happening, with your arms around me instead of around him. I had my confession rehearsed and planned for that perfect moment, but I'm guessing it will stay trapped in my throat. It's devastating. There is never a perfect hour to say what if, but I dreamed of murmuring it to you under starlight with your fingers intertwined with mine. I would meet your gaze and pose the wonderings I’ve tucked away in silence these last three years. You would soften. Knowing it could change everything, you'd answer with the truth you've hidden behind those gentle glances. We would finally discover what we could have been.

If I’m honest, I always sensed the ending was waiting in the wings. Still, I clung to the quiet hope that somehow I might bend the narrative, reshape the pages, just long enough to hold you the way I always meant to. I imagined us finally sitting at that small café at Celica’s Junction, the one with the terrible music and a perfect lighting that made you glow. There, I’d also tell you how your laughter sounds like home, how your voice in my voicemails became my favourite song. I'd watch you talk about your dreams, hoping it's not the last time I'd see wonder in your eyes. And when words ran dry, I’d spend the rest of the day committing every line of your face to memory.

Just before the weight of reality settles between us, I'd take your hand and tell you about the life I built for us in my head. You'd rest your forehead against mine, I'd shut my eyes, and for one suspended breath, we would exist in that space where almost dares to become always. With my heart splintering under the honesty of it all, I'd let you know you were my favourite daydream. I know this confession could shatter our friendship. We've been dancing around this possibility for years; this truth could end us, but I'm tired of pretending you don't live in every corner of my imagination. From the very first moment we spoke,

I loved the idea of you, and even as you choose someone else, I'm still enchanted by what we never became.

When I got the news from your friend, like a judge delivering verdict saying you've found your person, I looked to the universe and asked why it gave me hope if it planned to crush it. I could feel you slipping away, but I did not know you thought of me as just a friend. On quiet nights, when I replay our almosts; I wonder why fate brought me into your story if I was never meant to be the love interest. All this while, hiding behind casual conversations and small talks, I only wanted to be the object of all your desires.

You are with him now, but I'll always remember you as my favourite what if. Something about that phrase screams beautiful tragedy. Almost love is nearly poetry, and heartbreak is almost healing. It reminds me of us, almost perfect, but never quite real. I'll miss your maybes, they sound like 2 AM honesty. They are soft and they are dangerous. I'll miss the possibility in your silence, but I've accepted that this story never started. There are no more chapters for us. You filled my imagination with colour; now, all I'm left with are faded dreams.

The almost was my religion, that sacred space where anything seemed possible. The maybe was my prayer, I whispered into pillows and car rides and empty rooms. Now there's only the certainty that you were never mine to lose, which somehow makes losing you feel like dying anyway.

Perhaps this ending is mercy. Maybe losing my favourite what if means making room for what actually is. So if you think of our almosts while lying next to him, do not tell me. Do not text me at midnight wondering if we could have been magic. I've already started building a life without you and our what if, and frankly, I do not want to return to any more beautiful, devastating maybes.

If this is what it means to let go of an almost, blessed be the closure.