My “What If”

This man feels like shooting back a tequila chocolate shot at a speakeasy where I pretend that I am meeting him for the first time even though I still remember his high school football jersey number. For the first time in a long time, I like being in the present while letting his rusty charm flirt with my teenage nostalgia. The innocent giddiness that had gotten lost somewhere in the midst of the broken promises in my twenties, finds its way back to me. Even in the dim lighting his eyes light up my night, and suddenly I am 17 underneath the Friday night lights. A time when he was the jock that only knew me as the smart girl who subtly smiled at him in the hallways. He never knew that the butterflies I felt for him kept me warm while I stood on the sidelines. To me he was a game that I knew I would never know how to play. Somehow my breakup comes up, and he affirms that I am a girl worthy of only the best, but I lose myself in his words and find it hard to believe that “the best” could ever compare to that one night during the summer of 2015 when we drunkenly, allowed our worlds to collide with a kiss. I now know that it meant nothing more than a long time coming “hello” followed by a hidden “goodbye, for now”. What he doesn’t know is that he was my favorite short lived “what if”, so us sitting at this speakeasy, in this moment was always in the cards. What we both know is that my heart is still broken, and his boots move to the beat of the wind, so we will always remain a “what if” long after his eyes disappear underneath his cowboy hat while looking down at his steps away from me. Although, for just that night I drove home, 17 again, with butterflies in my stomach…heartbreak in my twenties is years away. My favorite “what if”.