text: Once, I knew a girl. This was a long time ago, back when our summers were golden, when we spent hours on the lake or riding our bikes or staying up a little too late. I have never met someone quite like her, and I often wonder what she’s up to now. She was almost always listening to music, some said she liked to have a soundtrack to her life. She was not quite “city pretty,” but she had a face that would turn a few heads. There was something about her that I couldn’t quite understand at the time; she had an air to her that I wouldn’t realize until many years later was the rarest thing I’d so foolishly let go. I like to think she was connected to nature a little more deeply than the rest of us. When she wasn’t hiking or swimming or watching the stars, she was trying to show me how beautiful these things were. That girl loved like no other. She had the purest of hearts, and it would come to betray her. When you’re as young as we were, loving like she did is dangerous. She poured her heart into my dreams; she gave me the world I always wanted. I did not deserve the love she gave me. She led me down roads that terrified me, she showed me the most vulnerable parts of herself and brought out the same in me. She had so many “things” that made her what she was, and each one had a story. I’d give everything to be sitting with her again listening to her tell those stories to me, while all I could do was look at her eyes sparkling with excitement. She reminded me of a piece of art I saw as a child. She was a canvas that, over the years, so many people had left their mark on. The love she gave to everyone is what defined her, and what destroyed her. I’d come to find later that she kept a notebook that she’d write me letters in. During our time, I’d been with so many girls. I put her through hell. I told her “I love you, and I’ll always be here” and then I’d find a new girl, pretty as the last one, who’d be around for a few months. Even still, she’d say, “goodnight darling, I always, always love you, sleep well,” and she’d stand by me no matter what girl I was with. She was never jealous. She was never angry, and she was always happy for me. I didn’t realize what I was doing to her. Every day I broke her a little more, and every night that she was on my mind I left her to write in her notebook. Only was it as I read those pages that I realized that this girl was in so much pain. I think that is the strongest love she gave me. She let me break her perfect glass heart, and when the pieces fell, she showed me how beautiful the little rainbows they made when the light hit them were. I was so ignorant. How could I not have seen that, despite the wild child in her, I was more than lucky to have her. I wish I knew then how strong she was. I wish I had been able to give her what she truly deserved. But in truth, I don’t know if anyone could have given her as much love as she deserved. Maybe that’s why she left. To where I couldn’t tell you. I always knew there was a part of her that needed more than her little town could give her, more than I could give her. I wonder if I had told her I loved her more, or if I had given up the silly girlfriends and gone with her maybe she’d still be around. A love like hers doesn’t die, she’s the type to love someone completely and neverendingly. I know, somewhere, she’s still got love for me, but she doesn’t need me like she thought she did then. She never needed me, really, but she wanted me. For so many years she waited, and when she couldn’t wait anymore, she was gone. The moment I went to her house and she had packed up and gone, I realized what I’d done. She had always said she wanted to see life. Truthfully, I know I give myself too much credit. I couldn’t have kept a soul like hers in one place. She needed freedom, but she wanted freedom with me, and I was too stupid to see it. I gave her up and I know I lost the greatest love I’ll ever experience. I know, now, she’s getting the life she really deserves, and I am not a part of it. Ironic, I find it, how the roles are reversed. She kept herself in a place she wanted so desperately to escape to show me love that I didn’t deserve, writing pages and pages about how she wished she were enough. Now I think about everything that I should’ve done to be good enough for her, and how she’s living, somewhere, without me. She made the right decision. I wish I could’ve then.