Rowe: The Boy Who Taught Me Love (Before the World Taught Me Grief)

“The saddest word in the whole wide world is the word almost.” – Nikita Gill

My Interpretation: Almost sixteen. Almost forever. Almost the one who made it through with me. Rowe was not just a teenage crush. He was the kind of almost that wrecks your ability to believe in “one day” love stories. We were almost everything: partners, roommates, husband & wife, old souls who made it out together. I still taste the version of me that only existed with him – young, seen, safe. I still grieve that girl too. Because almost is not just a sad word. It is a fucking haunted one.

---

🌧 My First Love. My Forever Ache.

Rowe was not just a teenage crush.
He was my soft place to land in a world that kept trying to harden me.

Gone before sixteen. But somehow still the measure I use when I say someone saw me.
Because he did.
He was not just a boy I loved – he was proof I was lovable before the world convinced me otherwise. 
Not just the surface stuff - the jokes, the sarcasm, & the masks.
He saw the bruised parts. The shadow stories. The trauma I had not found the words for yet.
& he did not look away.

He did not flinch.
He never looked at me as if I was broken. 
He just listened. 
He just… held it.
Held the parts no one else wanted to acknowledge. 
Held the eye contact with no fear…  
Held me.

---

🫀 Almost Everything

Almost sixteen.
Almost roommates.
Almost the boy I married in a courthouse ceremony we dreamed up between algebra & heartbreak.
Almost the one who made it out with me. 

But almost does not just sting. 
It haunts… 
Because it is a word with an echo. 
& Rowe? 
He is the echo I still carry in my bones – 
Proof that I was seen. 
Proof that I was worthy. 
Proof that once, even just for a fleeting moment in time – love was gentle to me. 

He was the kind of “almost” that makes your lungs ache twenty years later.
The kind of boy who walked me home, carried my secrets, & looked at me like I was magic - 
Even when I could not look at myself.

We planned everything like it was real estate.
The college. The apartment. The secret wedding. The future state I would get to choose after we finished our degrees. The mailbox at the end of the driveway. 
We negotiated it all - like we had decades ahead.
Because we believed we did.

But time ran out.

---

📵 Love Before Phones Were Glue

He once dropped his phone into a cup of chocolate milk.
Breaking it on purpose. 
Just to show that I mattered more. 
Because I told him I felt ignored when he was always on it.
& I will never forget what he said after:

“You matter more. That’s it.”

I felt so guilty. He refused to let me hold even a second of that guilt.
He made me feel safe.
Safe to be soft. Safe to dream. Safe to ask for more.
He was not performative.
He was not possessive.

He was love - the way love is meant to be:
Gentle.
Steady.
Uncomplicated in its certainty.

When Diana made everything harder, when my happiness felt like rebellion, he never told me to tone it down. 
He just helped me hide the joy better.
We danced in the rain.
He walked me home in the dark.
He brought me chocolate on my period like it was sacred ritual.

He looked at me like I was magic, again even when I could not look at myself.
Protected the light I had left - like it was sacred.

---

🕯 They Did Not Let Me Say Goodbye

He died a virgin.
But not before he taught me every single thing I know about love. 
& when he died -
I did not just lose a boyfriend.
I lost proof that love like that was possible.

Not the Hollywood kind.
Not the kind full of red flags wrapped in passion.
The real kind.
The quiet kind.
The kind that stays with you even after funerals you were not allowed to attend.

Because no one thought my grief was valid.
The kind of loss they don’t write poems for. 
The kind you’re expected to bury quietly.

I was not his wife.
I was just “some girl.”

They did not let me go.
Did not let me speak.
I did not even let me cry out loud.

I was just expected to swallow the ache & move on. 
Like he was not my whole universe wrapped in a hoodie & a sideways smile.

---

🕯 The Ghost in My Ribcage

I still dream about him.
Still picture the apartment we would have rented.
Still hear his laugh when something ridiculous happens.

There are moments I do not recognize myself - 
& I realize it is because the version of me that only existed with him is gone, too.


Because Rowe was not just my boyfriend.
He was the proof that I was lovable before the world convinced me otherwise. (Repetitive or is it proof that, 
that “one love” only comes once & you will forever be haunted by it?)  
Not a single man since has ever made me feel what Rowe did - 
That I could be me & still be loved.
So yeah, I am still chasing that love.
& I have been chasing that feeling ever since.
Not because I am stuck in the past - 
but because that boy gave me a glimpse of what I deserve.
& I cannot & will not settle for anything less anyMORE than I already have in my adulthood. 

Xoxo ♡

---