it's june.
your ninety-six year old grandmother wraps her shaking fingers around your hand.
she's dying.
the doctors say she won't make it through the day.
you and your family gather around her bed like crows anxiously circling something from above.
waiting.
your grandmother reaches for your high school year book: ninth grade.
your stomach knots up, and you're not sure why.
silently she flips through the pages with her free hand,
the only sound being that from the oxygen flowing through her cannula.
suddenly she gasps,
and it scares you half to death because you know that she's already far more than halfway there herself,
her clammy fingers clench tighter around yours as she points to a picture on page 57.
everyone in the room looks down at the floor,
as if it is suddenly fascinating,
but you stare at her photo as your grandmother cries and says
"she was the one I was hoping you'd end up with"

it's july.
your grandmother has been gone for one month but you can't get the words she last spoke to you out of your mind.
ninth grade.
high school seems like an eternity ago -
homecoming and prom and then graduation -
you did all of these incredible things together.
but it wasn't enough for you.

it's august.
most people your age will soon be returning to school,
nearing the end of their masters by now.
you can't help but to picture her, smiling for her student ID photo and shuffling through the narrow aisles of an enormous school's book store,
piling her arms full of anything with a hardback and a spine that she can get her little hands on,
books, books, so many **** books -
who the hell's going to hold all of those **** books for her? -
she loved to read.
she loved to write.
you remember the day her first book was published, how she cried for hours and smiled for days,
enthralled with the knowledge that she was now an author.
you watched her sign books, you watched them sign checks,
but you knew she couldn't have cared less about their money. she didn't want it.
you remember all she wanted was for people to read her book. you remember her hunched over her laptop,
constantly updating the website that kept track of how many copies she'd sold.
you remember her signing your book.
all she wanted was for you to read it.
you remember that you never did.

it's september.
you never went back to college.
without her, it just wasn't right for you.
but still, you find yourself camped outside of the university you know she now attends,
looking at every face that exists the building and hoping to god that this one is her.
you wait for an hour,
picturing with giddy excitement the moment your eyes will meet. although there's a crowd of a hundred other bumbling college students you are positive
her eyes will instantly be drawn to yours.
you wait two hours.
and suddenly,
she's there, you see her,
god, after all this time you see her;
and she's still so **** beautiful it nearly blows your mind. you never knew one person could contain so much beauty.
just as you're about to sprint and sweep her off her feet,
you stop dead in your tracks.
the fellow who politely held the door open for the girl
who you realize is in fact no longer a girl
but a woman,
the woman who you used to love,
he takes the books from her hands and wraps his free arm tightly around her waist -
you remember her waist, her hips, her belly button, all the skin you touched and kissed a million times over,
he's touching her now as if
there was never anyone else
before.
you watch although it kills you
because it's simply impossible to turn and look away.
he pushes her bangs - had she always had bangs? - behind her ears and kisses her for what feels like a forever of its own,
and she smiles.
she never takes her eyes away from him.
she doesn't even see you standing there.

it's october.
you drink now, because it's the only way to forget.
you drive yourself near insane wondering how you ever let the love of your life slip right through your undeserving fingers.
you always knew you didn't deserve her.
you just never thought she would ever think the same.

it's november,
but the days seem to run together now.
weeks go by without any attention from you,
and this doesn't matter.
nothing matters.
you lost her.
you remember the first time you ever saw her,
you were fourteen years old.
it was january, but you were wearing shorts. the first thing she ever said to you was "why are you wearing shorts? don't you know it's winter?"
and suddenly, you didnt know.
you didn't know anything,
you didnt know it was winter or monday or 2:52 p.m,
you couldn't tell the sun from the moon or red from blue or anything that didn't have to do with her.
you stood there and you didn't say a word, because you didn't know how to do that either.
but she smiled, and she laughed,
and the sound was enough
to carry you all the way to this day
where you stand drunk,
alone,
without her.