When the email came announcing the BBVD show, I immediately thought of you. We’ve seen them play twice together, and I can still remember the feel of the energy in the air the first time, almost three years ago. I remember us both dancing in our seats. Watching the bass player with giddy awe. Playing our air horns. Laughing and smiling at each other.

You told me afterwards that it was one of the Top Five shows you’d ever seen, and I was pretty proud of myself for dragging you along to see a band I loved in High School. Before we left, you grabbed a set list which had been left on stage and gave it to me. I still have it. I keep it because whenever I find it among my mementos, it reminds me of the way you kissed me when you dropped me off that night…

You had come inside the apartment, but didn’t stay long. It was late, we both had to be up for work in the morning, and we were exhausted, the evening’s high wearing off. You hugged me close and long, as you often do, but as we pulled away you put your hands on either side of my face and you kissed me like you had never done before (or since). It was sweet and passionate and though we had kissed several times before, it was the first time you really kissed me.

And…then you left.

I stood there in my apartment thinking “Holy shit he’s never kissed me like that before… What does this mean?? I can’t let him leave!”. So I opened my front door, called you back from the elevator, and all but threw myself at you. I don’t even remember the sex.

To this day you still reference me calling you back from the elevator for sex as a way to share the blame for this mess we’re in. I can only recall ever doing it that one time…but it doesn’t make your point any less valid. I’ve asked myself a million times since then why I couldn’t just have left well enough alone. Why I couldn’t have let you leave, with the memory of that one amazing kiss fresh on my mind. If I could edit the memory to end with me watching you walking away towards the elevator – well, that would be something. Instead, it runs just a few minutes longer, and becomes tainted by my selfish and greedy behavior, and all that has plagued me since.

But that’s not enough for me to stop hoping that, maybe someday, you’ll kiss me like that again. It’s not enough for me to pass up the chance to have two tickets in hand, almost in the same seats as that first show, even if I didn’t really have the $126 to spend. It isn’t until the end of May, and I don’t know what we’ll be then. I don’t know if we’ll be speaking again. I don’t know if I’ll have had enough time to sort myself out. I don’t know where you’ll be, mentally, emotionally. I don’t know if you’ll be interested in going. I don’t know if you’ll be interested in going with me.

I hope we will. I hope you will. I miss you.