Sweatshirt

A summer full of regrets, and a constant reminder that symbolizes more than you could ever imagine.

I talked to him again today. Every word that came out of me felt weak and confused. I'm not supposed to talk to him. He's off limits, forbidden, and most of all, sinister. Staring at my phone, I feel used. It's almost like I'm reliving everything that happened last time through our simple conversations. Remembering the past only adds to the pain that hits me every time his number pops up on my phone, or when I see his stupid sweatshirt sitting across the room. That dumb, adolescent sweatshirt burns a hole through the chair it sits on and right into my heart. A heart wrenching reminder that needs to be dealt with, but I refuse to. I don't have the courage to see him again, even if it's only to give back his sweatshirt. That sweatshirt stood for every little thing that happened between us, and without it, there's nothing left to remember. I can't decide if I want to let his face, his laugh, or the way he walked to surface in my memory every time I look at his sweatshirt, or if I want to give it back along with everything else. Freeing myself of him demands that I release my hold on his cheap, cotton sweatshirt. I question myself, can I do it? No one is forcing me to do it. There's no commitment binding my hands and forbidding that I don't touch him anymore. If I hadn't felt confined, if I hadn't felt wrong, would I have let him touch me like that? Would I have let him kiss me until my heart stopped and my hands trembled? Would I have told him I hated him? He didn't deserve it. I keep blaming him and calling him evil in my head. But is he really? Can I really call him wicked after he 'stopped' by my work just to say hi when he lives 20 minutes away? Everything is blurred. There are no lines anymore to keep me away from this boy who almost destroyed everything I lived on. The question I'm faced with asking myself is, would I have remembered it fondly if there were no bounds? 

Instead I stare at the sweatshirt, his sweatshirt. It doesn't mock me anymore. It doesn't taunt me with uncomfortable memories of a summer gone by. Do I keep the symbol of a ruined friendship, or an ill-fated summer crush? Do I forgive him? Do I try to be friends again? Sometimes I wish that I'd never borrowed this stupid, dumb, adolescent, reminding, cotton, cheap sweatshirt.