Think of a time when you had to let someone or something go to be free…did they come back?

Six months ago, Nick let her walk out the door. It was after one of their particularly nasty fights and he just…couldn’t anymore. She threatened to leave for a 5th time…and he let her.

Now here she was at their mutual friends’ wedding, eyeing him. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he got a drink and then another and then…all of sudden he was drunker than he intended.

He still wasn’t sure how he felt about her, even after all this time. He couldn’t shake this feeling that he was never going to be good enough for her and he kept bending himself to please her until he eventually broke.

“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you…” His mother always told him that. He just didn’t think it would be applicable after his 10th birthday.

Suddenly, Mavis appeared next to him, with a twinkle in her eye. He forgot how tiny she was.

“I wasn’t sure if I should come up and say hello but I noticed you’re doing your buzzed dance and thought you might be drunk enough to forget you hate me for a second,” she said in a low voice that sort of melted underneath the loud wedding music. But he heard every word.

She had that effect on him. Their relationship sometimes resembled that of a monarch and their servant. He eventually couldn’t mentally sustain that anymore and had to let her go.

Now here she was in front of him, intoxicating as always, tempting him with that smile, like a devil.

“I don’t hate you, Mav,” he said. “I never have. I just needed to end whatever it was that we were doing.”

She smiled brilliantly and gently grabbed his hand. “I know and I appreciate that more than you could ever know.”

He couldn’t think of a fast enough response, grunting like a Neanderthal.

She squeezed his hand, whispered, “Save me a dance later,” and floated away.

He stared after her, wondering if he was about to fall down that rabbit hole again. Sometimes the things you let go, come back.