You’re hot. You’re rich. You’re tall. You’re not the hopeless type, at least that’s what you tell yourself. How could you be when you have it all? The career, the house, the beautiful wife… all you could ever want, all except for her.

Where did it all go wrong? You were so perfect together, or so you thought. Your life was like a movie when you were with her, and she was the star of the show, stopping traffic together wherever you went. People would stop you to tell you how lucky you were, how beautiful you looked together. You were always your best self when you were with her, never wrinkle on your clothes or a hair out of place. You wanted to be good for her, the best, and for a little while you thought you were inextricably hers.

When you try to think about where it all went wrong, your mind draws a blank. Perhaps because it’s so much easier to remember her for the good times, and not all that followed. The best friend, the party where you found her on his lap, the bullshit apology from him only to see her in his cars days later. The worst part of all of it was that you were a desperate virgin at the time, lying to everyone around you that you had in fact, hit it, when in reality you never even got close. Every time your little boner popped up, often just from seeing her in her outfit of the day, she’d laugh at you and shut you down, as if killing your hard on could ever be that easy when she exists in the same world as you. Even outside of it, ten years later, you struggle to keep the blood from rushing to your dick whenever you see her name. You’ve been Pavlov’d into getting hard for her almost every day since you’ve been with her, all while she doesn’t even think about you, ever.

You’ve stopped trying to get over her, long ago. Life is so much better when you’re consumed with the fantasy of her, so, so much better than the present. None of it means anything to you, not the house, not your job, not even your clueless wife. The futility drives you. The reality that you lost the love of your life maddens you. The realization that maybe you never had her in the first place, the thought of your best friend’s hand traveling up her skirt, under her tiny panties, into her tight little slit you never got to lick or touch… it ends you. You were a throwaway—a practice boyfriend, used for all you were worth and discarded once she got who she really wanted. You can be certain she never really wanted you, but that’s never stopped you, not for a single day in the last ten years, from pining for her now and forever after.