All I Ask

Trigger warning: This is one of my most personal posts ever.

This is one of Adele’s many heart-breakingly beautiful songs. I can’t listen to this without feeling its emotional pull, never mind that I never was in the song’s exact circumstance.

But I almost was. Though my guy and I have been together now for more than a decade now, there was a time before when I honestly thought everything was over between us. Had we not gotten back together, I would have been literally singing this song with matching tears and snot. It would have hurt that bad. Why? Allow me to tell you one of the most painful parts of our story…

Before everything else, we started out as friends in high school. Grew real close, became best friends, then later best friends with (some, not all) benefits. You know the drill. It was a happy but very complicated time for us. For all intents and appearances, we were as boyfriend and girlfriend. But ask either of us and we’ll say we’re just best friends. Stupid I know. But youth and all that, it made some sense at the time. Anyway.

That all ended when his ex-girlfriend entered the picture–ironically enough, through my own curiosity and fault. Long story short, they got back together and I was left hanging. Like he said, he would have broken up with me, but then we didn’t exactly have a real relationship to begin with. So we went back to being simply best friends even though it fucking hurts. But then, time came when he told me he couldn’t even be my friend anymore because of his girlfriend’s jealousy–that they fight so much about me that to save their relationship, he had to give me up and cut me off from his life.

You could bet how that went over. To say I hated him was an understatement. Just reliving those moments now, I feel that rage even if it’s all done and over with. I really fucking hated him for throwing away years of friendship for her, for heartlessly breaking me apart into a million tiny hurting pieces. I was so, sooo hurt. So much that I was literally like a zombie that time. I was severely depressed. I couldn’t eat, and consequently lost weight in a matter of days. Not even when my [girl] best friend treated me to pizza, which I love almost as much as I love him. I was just staring off to space, slices of my favorite comfort food rapidly cooling on my plate, failing spectacularly to give me any semblance of comfort.

And to add insult to the injury, I heard thru common friends that they still fought a lot anyway even if I was already out of the picture, even broke up for a time. It was the ultimate insult. I was like, you fucking hurt me that much only to break up with her? Seriously? Nasan ang hustisya? The damage was too much for too little, I literally wanted them to get together just to justify the world of hurt they caused me–I was twisted that much by the pain. And thankfully they did eventually, so I was able to continue peacefully hating their guts.

I was depressed for the most part of the next couple of years, and my already morbid teenage angst multiplied exponentially. I became the quintessential emo/goth/existential nihilist who’ll kick your ass without a second thought if you got in my way. I spent countless nights in silent tears, not willing to show the world that weakness. Because at the end of the day, I still loved the jerk. So much that it took me that long to accept that he’s not coming back and it’s really over between us, never mind that I loved him still. I was getting ready to move on, even starting to open myself up to the possibility of maybe falling for another guy.

But at the back of my mind, I had the notion that even if I get married to another, I still want him to be my first lover. That before I get married, I’ll find him and have one first and last night with him. That’s all I ask…

If this is my last night with you
Hold me like I’m more than just a friend
Give me a memory I can use
Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do
It matters how this ends
‘Cause what if I never love again?