“

One day, months later, she knocked on his door. She waited a few minutes and when there was no answer, she rang the bell.

He was doing homework in his pajamas. His roommate went back home for the weekend, and he was a mess. He heard the bell ring and assumed it was just Girl Scouts or another politician, so without even thinking, he looked through the peephole.

His heart stopped beating in his chest. She was looking down, but he’d know her blonde hair anywhere. He looked away and rested his hand on the door. Collecting himself, he opened it.

“Hey,” came out of her mouth before he even had a chance to speak. Her breathing was short and labored. Her cheeks were red and her hands were shaking.

“Well, hey,” he said. He didn’t know what to say. She was here. On his doorstep. After all this time of him being too stubborn to reach out to her. She was always the more level headed one. He was so stupid to let her go. And his second chance just knocked on his front door. He couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face. “What brings you here?”

But then she told him. About her engagement. About how she hoped he could make the wedding. About how she wanted him to be in her life again…as a friend.

And he nodded and smiled, telling her congratulations and that he was happy that she was happy. But when she left, he closed the door, and he sat on the couch, and he realized that he had waited too long. He expected her to show up one day—even though he was the one who sent her away—and say that she missed him. That she still loved him.

But that only happens in movies. Losing people happens in real life.

So he sat on the couch, and he knew that he had lost her. And when you lose certain things, they never come back.

”