I work hard to convince myself that the fluttering is the sound of butterflies trying to find a place to nest; that the rushing from my head to the pit of my stomach and back to my head again is more than just anxiety from future regret. I choose to hold my tongue and be skeptical because my optimism always ends in “We should have stayed as friends”.

I’ve mastered the art of starting over, lessons learnt from repeatedly having to memorise favourite colours, putting my body in their desired positions and having to delete numbers along with the love I thought would outlive the length of a lease.

So this time I will save you as a maybe, not another “The One”. Instead of saying you are what I always longed for, I’ll refer to you as an accident gone right and when someone asks how I feel about us, I won’t say you’re perfect nor will I tell them you make my heart long for forever. I will simply tell them I’ve always wanted something like this.