Over drinks, I told you about the first and second men I ever loved. How the first broke my world open and the second pieced it back together. “It’s strange,” I said. “How we think each love story is unique, but they blend into each other. Our love for one person impacts our love for the other.”

You didn’t buy it, believing that each relationship ended once it ended. Lingering on the feelings made you feel strange, like you were drowning in thick mud. Acknowledging one’s past was akin to never really getting over it.

“Besides,” you said. “I’m friends with all of my exes, so things are fine.”
“What about Kaleb?”
“That’s different,” you said, finishing off your beer and going to grab another.

Outside, the temperature was dropping, and the night was slow-crawling from purple-pink to muddled black. The bar’s string lights twinkled into existence like long-lost stars rediscovered by new scientists. I kept thinking about the past and future: how the two could collide in profound ways, intertwining like parasitic vines across garden bushes.