“So, Bryant is taking me away for a weekend in Paris,” my best friend for as long as I could remember, Max, enthused. “I can’t help but think that he might finally be about to propose.”

“That’s excellent news,” I replied through gritted teeth.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want the best for Max. If anyone deserved true happiness, it was him. I just needed a bit of it for myself, and that was all. It had been forever since I’d found someone to be excited about.

Actually, if I really thought about it, there had only ever been one person that I truly adored, but I tried not to think about him too much these days because it hurt my heart to do so. Still, even after years of being apart, I kept meaning to move on, but it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

“Oh I’m so happy!” Max bounced up and down on my couch like an excitable bunny rabbit. “I’ve wanted this for as long as I can remember.”

“I know.” I nodded slowly as I sipped my coffee. I tried my best to keep my moroseness from my tone. It wasn’t Max’s fault that I felt sad. I didn’t want to put a dampener on his joy, but I wasn’t sure how successfully I managed that. Max didn’t look totally convinced at any rate. “You’re really lucky.”

I glanced my eyes around my apartment, drinking in all the luxuries I’d afforded myself through my awesome career as a marketing executive. I loved my job, and it felt great to have made such a success of my life. In that way, I was lucky, but the thing I was missing was always prodding me in the side, reminding me that it wasn’t all good.

I had everything I wanted, but no one to love, no one to share it with.

“Oh don’t worry, mate.” Max patted my shoulder in what I’m sure he thought was a comforting gesture. He would’ve never wanted to come across as patronizing as he did. “The one for you will come along.”

The one for me had already come along. I’d already been offered that kind of once-in-a-lifetime true love, but it didn’t last. If I couldn’t keep hold of Derek Tricks with all the feelings we had for one another, then I didn’t stand a chance at ever keeping anyone. Maybe that was why I didn’t bother trying.

Ah Derek, with his beautiful olive skin, his warm hazel eyes, his beautiful deep black curls… he was an utter vision of gorgeousness. Sometimes I wondered why it took me so long to pay attention to him.

We were in school together our entire childhood, but we didn’t run in the same circles. He hung out with the jocks, and I was more one of the… academic types, with Max. The nerds, as Derek always called us, but in a sweet, teasing way. We didn’t even speak much, until we reached the final year of high school when hormones and charged emotions began to control us. That was when I started to recognize that what I felt for Derek wasn’t admiration, and he began to really see me too. I was nothing compared to him; awkward, pasty, red-haired and geeky… but somehow Derek managed to fall for me anyway.

We fell easily into one another’s arms, and quickly shared our first kiss. There was no need for us to be scared about the world knowing about our love, because it was so real, so fierce that we could’ve weathered anything. In the end, the kids in our school respected us too much to bother with teasing. It was so easy for us to just be. It was the happiest time of my whole damn life.

Maybe that should’ve been my first clue that I wasn’t going to get the happy ever after I desired. Maybe it was all too simple, and I shouldn’t have been so naïve.

Eventually school ended, and I assumed that with all our newfound freedom that our love would blossom and grow. I thought we’d find a college that suited us both, or maybe a new city in which to build some awesome careers, and that the world would become our oyster.

How wrong I was. While I was happily planning and dreaming about a future with Derek in it, he was making his escape. He just upped and vanished, joined the army apparently, without even saying goodbye. He didn’t even bother to tell me that it was over, he just disappeared in the dead of night, leaving my heart shattered into a million pieces.

The whole thing must’ve meant a whole lot more to me than it did him.

“What happened to that bloke you were dating, Tommy, was it?” Max continued, completely oblivious to my inner flashback into the most heartbreaking moment of my entire life.

Losing Derek crushed me. I wept for weeks, and I never wanted to experience that again. I couldn’t even go to college, or move somewhere else. I simply remained where I was and tried to create a life for myself in another way entirely. “He was cute, right?”

“Boring,” I lied, while pointedly focusing my gaze on my fingernails. “I just didn’t have anything in common with him.”

Max gave me a look, one that could see deep into the parts of me that I never wanted to expose to the rest of the world. I could lie to him all I wanted, but he knew the issue. Tommy was gone because he wasn’t Derek.

No one ever would be.

“Course.” He decided to roll with it, rather than dig me out. My feelings weren’t worth analyzing because there was nothing that could be done about it. “Well, your dream man is just around the corner, I’m sure of it.”

I smiled thinly, but I couldn’t vocalize an agreement with him because I didn’t believe it myself. I worked seventy hours a week, I worked out during all the free time I wasn’t sleeping, and I pushed myself in every way possible just to ensure that I didn’t have to worry too much about the lack of love. I didn’t usually think about it but at moments like this when it felt like I was being left behind, it was challenging to think about anything else.

Now Max was going to get married, I was sure he was right about the proposal because he and Bryant were the most incredible couple ever. It was the next logical step for them both, and I would surely be dragged into the wedding planning. Love was going to thrust violently into my face for the foreseeable future. It would be difficult to think about anything else.

“Anyway, I have to go and pack. I’ll see you when I get back, alright?” Max cocked his head, giving me a very concerned look. “You will be okay, won’t you?”

“Oh you know me, I’ll be fine.” I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture, but of course my best friend knew me too well. He pulled me in for a much-needed bear hug, which comforted me, if only for a moment. “You have a lovely weekend and I will see you when you get back.”

“I’ll have my phone with me, so you can call me whenever you want.”

“Don’t you worry about me.” I squeezed my friend’s hand, guilt washing over me. I didn’t want to ruin his big moment because I was a pathetic fool. He didn’t deserve this from me. “You promise me you’ll enjoy yourself.”

I had to move on. I needed to find a way to put the past behind me to move on or my future would always be this. I didn’t want to be stuck in limbo forever. It sucked. I was hurting myself more and more every single day.

One thing was for sure, I needed to forget all about Derek Tricks now. I vowed to myself that I would never think about him again.