much too immature to pursue a lasting relationship, that budding romances should never be mistaken as true love.

I argued against her and marked her with incredulity. I believed that mine would last. That I would always be with Jongin – through college and forth, because the bond we shared was the farthest from immature and the least from effervescent.

But fate proved me wrong. So wrong.

That day, he and I were the only ones to stay after Jazz practice. He was sitting against the wall, chugging down a bottle of water while I was wiping away the beads of perspiration on my gleaming forehead. “I’m going to study abroad,” he casually broke the news to me. Jongin indifferently delivered the one statement changed our lives – or maybe just mine because he’s been planning this long since. He was so calm and composed it was almost unbelievable. It almost seemed as if our three year-long relationship and prior ten years’ worth of friendship meant nothing to him. It seemed as if I became a simple, undesirable speck of dust that he had been waiting to brush off.

“Juilliard,” he added, as to defend his decision. Of course, he strove for nothing but the best. The best arts school in New York City was to become his new home. And I was definitely no longer in that landscape painting.

I contemplated a while before even questioning him or simply offering my reaction. “Why...why didn’t you tell me about applying?” I croaked in a barely audible, already cracking voice. I wondered why I even bothered to question him. It was not like I had any say over his future. If I didn’t ask him, maybe I could have preserved the last bit of my dignity. But my aching heart forced what was left of my voice to cry that pathetic question.

It wasn’t that I wanted to beg for him to stay; no, I would never request that of him. It wasn’t that I wanted an apology from him. I just...I simply sought the reason behind revealing this to me only days before his departure.

His eyes twitched and he bit his bottom lip – the latter an action that I knew perfectly well was his habit whenever he was excited or nervous. This time, I knew for sure he was not excited; what did he have to be excited about? Leaving? I knew that was not it. I was sure that our love for each other was mutual and genuine. Was he nervous? Nervous to tell me that he had been planning this all along without bothering to tell me? What did I even mean to him? Was it not simple courtesy to inform your girlfriend that you were leaving within the next month and not returning for four years? “I...I didn’t want to bring my hopes high and tell you about something that was not definite,” he concluded.

But the indefinite thought became reality.

“So…” I struggled to uncover the right subject to discuss, the appropriate diction to use. “So what happens to us now?” Were we over? Four years and thousands of miles – were we capable? Was our relationship strong enough? We both knew the answer was a definite, crystal clear “no”. Although naïve and immature, we both knew perfectly well that the distance was something beyond the realm of our competency. But what were we still holding onto? A sense of hope, a speck of probability? Or simply, the past that was almost long gone and just waiting to be written down as history?

After years of inactivity, the sting and burn returned to my eyes. I felt my eyes starting to water and I saw that the same cloudiness fogged his eyes. His features spoke of pain, and I was sure that mine illustrated no other. Was this pain what everyone meant when they said that first loves were the most painful to end and hardest to forget?

He muttered an elongated, “I don’t know...” That was a line that would perhaps also scripted in my dialogue if I was in his shoes. But we both knew of the cold truth, although we refused to admit.  “I’ll be gone for four years.” Four years too long. “And I can’t afford to travel back and forth constantly.” And neither could I. “So-”

“So this means breakup.” It wasn’t a question. It was a definite statement. A fact that I didn’t want to face. A truth that I didn’t want to admit.

Agony washed over his perfectly handsome features, and his plump lips – ones that I longed to kiss for the final time – quivered the slightest. My heart wrenched in guilt, but then, I remembered that this was not my fault. “What?” he almost gasped, as if unbelieving.

I almost scoffed at this reaction. What else did he expect? He planned this, not I. “If not, then what?”

“I...I-I’m sorry.” I immediately retreated upon hearing his apology. The guilt and shame that I had previously refused to accept immediately branded into my heart. I was angry. I was hurt. But why? I shouldn’t have been either. I expressed my frustration towards him, but he deserved not a cent of it. His dreams possessed more weight than I did, and it should have been nothing but that. Jongin had to go. And I was in no place to stop him.

I wanted to say that it wasn’t his fault. I wanted to assure him that it was perfectly fine – and proper – that he pursue his dreams. Both were things that I should have done. But I couldn’t. Those words wouldn’t come out despite how hard I tried. The splitting pain in my chest and the expanding, biting lump in my throat prevented any sound apart from whimpers from escaping. So I turned to leave. And he made no move to stop me, because any hindrance would just incommode the situation.

Jongin left the following week. Before boarding his plane, he called me. Upon seeing his name flash on the once lifeless screen of my smartphone, fear ignited hope and mixed emotions erupted in the deepest pit of my heart.  He was leaving; I was certain that was the reason behind his contact. But I knew it would had been harder for me to let go if I answered that call and allowed his voice to grace my eardrums once again. But he still left me a five minute long voice message. I wished that he never did. He should have simply told me that he was leaving now and that our relationship was over.

“Angel,” he began. It was the nickname that he gave me. That simple word tugged at my heartstrings until they all snapped into worthless fragments. He was the only one who ever called me that.  I was no angel – no, I was far from meeting the requirements of that label, but he addressed me by that nonetheless. I was his angel, and he was my savior. “I... I’m leaving now...I love you...a lot.”

Rather than delivering a cold goodbye, he told me how much he loved me and how much he was to miss me. “I wanted to hear your voice again, before I leave...” I heard him inhale deeply before he continued. He was probably crying by now. No, he shouldn’t have cried – not for me. “But I guess that is too much to ask for now, right?” He chuckled lowly. It was a dark chuckle. I knew that sound and the implications behind it. Jongin was hurt and in disbelief; his features must had been darker than the evening sky during an eclipse, and I was the cause of such unpleasant and somber emotions conquering his perfect features. No, no it wasn’t. But I was just a coward. A coward to afraid to let go.

I thought this would had been easy - just avoid you and hit delete to erase you from my heart. But who knew? Who knew it was this hard to become foreign again with my feelings for you? As if there was a computer forensic analyst in my heart, retracing and recovering every detail about you, about us, I couldn’t seem to bury you away. As if it wasn’t already impossible, you just had to leave that message that was not only saved on the hard drive of my phone, but was not permanently etched into the hard drive of my heart. How could I let go now?