Day 1 - the Ex at Work

June 11, 2013. Day 1.

I was at work today. The usual. I look over and see a few kids that I recognize, and I realize that I graduated high school with them last year. Then, thinking about it some more, I realize that they are friends with my ex. The ex that I was with for two years. The one that was my first love through most of high school and the one that broke my heart. The one that I still think about on a daily basis, against my better judgement. Let's call him Ethan. As soon as I see Ethan my heart starts pounding and I get pissed off at the same time. He comes over to the register, and I am basically hiding behind my coworker because there is no way in HELL that I am going to cash him out and try to make small talk with him. I whisper to her that he is my ex and she immediately takes over, thank God. They are talking  while she is cashing him out and I'm standing behind my register trying to avoid all eye contact and pretend like I don't know it's him. His girlfriend (lets call her Dani) walks over and looks at me. She knows perfectly well who I am. She puts her arms around him and he kisses her forehead. My coworker finishes the transaction and they leave the store.

I don't still love him. I can't. It's been two and a half years since we've been together. I've had other boyfriends since then. I think I still have this strange attachment to him though. Probably because he was my first love, and he broke my heart. A part of me will probably always love him, while the rest of me get's irrationally angry every time I see him. I haven't seen him for over a year, since we graduated high school last May. I went to college, he works at a supermarket. I still think about him everyday though, and I don't know why. Little things remind me of him, a song that we used to listen to, a movie we watched together, a character in a tv show with the same name as him. And I have dreams about him. Not often, probably once every few months. But in the dreams we are always together. He comes up to me, apologizes, begs me to take him back and then we live happily ever after. When I wake up my first reaction is a mixture of sadness and anger. I am so angry that I still think about him and have dreams about him, and it makes me even angrier that I can't stop these dreams. But I'm sad because I firmly believe that we could have worked things out. We could have been really happy together. He was my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first love. We were together from freshman year up until junior year, high school sweethearts. I really believe things could have worked out. And I'll never know.

I know I'm better off without him. As far as I can tell, his life is going nowhere, and I'm pursuing my degree at college. It just sucks living in the same town as him and having to see him sometimes, even if it's hardly ever. Those random little encounters, like today's, are just enough to make me think about him again and ruin my day.

-Anonymous Girl