A mens large hoodie with a brown cotton rayon blend and a white graphic on the front from town neither of us had ever been to. Most relationships can be defined by the hoodie haver, and the hoodie taker. I was the latter.
We broke up in January and in February I enlisted the help of my two best friends to take the 40 minute drive to your house with me and do the post break up belonging swap. I was only 16. I didn't have the guts to face you alone, and when you asked me if we could talk, I said no.
Days later, I noticed your brown hoodie folded and tucked away deep in my purple dresser drawers. It was a good hoodie, it wasn't its fault that you had manipulated and traumatized me for the year and a half we were together. I put it on, even though the smell made my nose wrinkle and turn up.
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A heavy leather lettermans jacket. White with red patches representing your accomplishments as a soccer goalie. You let me borrow it after we started dating a few short months after I gave away the big brown hoodie.
At first we seemed perfect for each other. We were both traumatized in similar ways by our previous partners, who happened to be both of our first gay relationships. Our friend groups meshed together seamlessly and we spent the summer camping and hiking and exploring eachothers hometowns.
On my 18th birthday you said you would follow me anywhere. Which scared me and I realized, I wasn't really in love with you. Brutally, I broke up with you on the phone when you were on vacation in California weeks after you had committed to the same college I did.
Your letterman's jacket hung in my closet untouched for the summer as I packed up the rest of my closet in preparation to move into the dorms. It stayed in my childhood bedroom for a few months after I moved out before you texted me and asked for it back. I left it in a trader joe's bag in the lobby of your dorm. I regret that cold exchange.
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A large cotton sports tee and a wishbone necklace. You left the shirt in my dorm after the first night you spent with me and you got me the wishbone necklace for christmas because I always reminded you to wish on a fallen eyelash, at 11:11 and at the shooting star we saw on the roof once. We had been together for a few months, even though we were never really together.
There was uncertainty about your sexuality and a pressure to ‘come out’ that made you feign at commitment. We had everything else except for the label, even the break up. Two break ups actually. After you broke up with me for the second time I swore I would never get back together with someone after it had already ended. I ripped up your shirt and used it as rags and I broke the wishbone in half and threw away all except for the chain.
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A broken stud earring with a yellow square and five pink dots on it. It must have fallen out while you slept in my twin bed.
I met you during my tinder date phase. Only a few weeks before we all moved out for summer break. I wanted desperately to stay in touch even though our respective summer homes were over four hours away.
Even though the earring was broken beyond repair, I kept it in my jewelry box, hoping that when we were back in the same town you would ask for it back. As the summer progressed and we slowly stopped talking, I realized how futile my hope was. Four years later it still sits in my jewelry box, long living past our relationship's expiry date. It doesn't represent my desire for you anymore, just some nostalgia of the times we shared.
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A gold synthetic opal ring. You wore it almost every day on your right pointer finger and took it off for safe keeping while you slept at my apartment. You left it on my cluttered bedside table, lost to both of us for weeks.
We were a new couple when the pandemic started and unofficially moved in together as a result. It was either that or be alone. Our relationship quickly deteriorated as did our sleep schedules, grades, and alcohol consumption. Not a day went by without tension, but it was better than the thought of dealing with all of this alone.
The summer rolled in and we started to see our friends again. The space helped alleviate the tension but we could both still feel it there. Two weeks before my 20th birthday you broke up with me.
I found your ring where you left it next to my bed. I was still heartbroken and hopeful that something could mend this hurt between us, but I wasn't ready to confront you either. I held onto it for a couple more months until you texted me one night. Angrily accusing me of gatekeeping our friends after you hadn’t been invited to a halloween party. I took pliers to your ring and twisted off the metal pieces that held the opal in place and looked at the pieces next to each other. Then I put it back together. I left the ring with all of the letters you wrote me and gifts you gave me on your front porch. Part of me hoped the wind would blow it all away, but I knew if it did, I would never be rid of you.
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I decided to try and stay single for a whole year. Chronic monogamy was nothing that one year of reflection and realization couldn't solve. I made a promise that nothing would be more important than myself and I hoped that every lesson I should have learned over the past four year would finally click into place. Like trying to hold onto good memories, instead of cold heartedly erasing all evidence of someone, or trying to remember my value, my goals and individuality and self worth. I try not to make the same mistakes again now that I am with someone new. The sweetest and most honest someone I have ever been with.
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I have many things of yours strewn around my apartment, left and lost during our nightly sleepovers. Your silver butterfly earrings with purple and pink iridescent beads on my nightstand, your soft knitted socks in my dresser, and your toothbrush I bought for you to have at my house in a cup in my bathroom. In my closet there is a loose black dress you wore to my house the first night you slept over. I found it the next day and you told me to keep it for now. You said you would get it back eventually. Ten months later it's still hanging in my closet. I hope that it won't get shoved into a trader joe's bag with all of your other belongings for the ceremonial break up exchange, or cut up into rags out of spite, or left outside your apartment in a storm. Despite a lifetime of heartbreak and tragedy I can still hope with naive optimism that one day when we are old and farty, one of us will pull that dress out of a box and we will reminisce about the summer we met.