we were in love for 48 hours
and now we are strangers again
We were in love for only a moment.
A snapshot in the summer, a whisper of a promise, two worlds briefly brushed, then flung far apart. Blinding hope and crushing disappointment. You came and went in the flash of a camera.
You were always taking photos, videos. You captured every moment of your life on film — otherwise, how would you know it happened at all? I get it. I get the same impulse to record, to remember. That’s why I keep my journals, my songs, my letters.
But this isn’t a love letter. I’m writing this not to yearn for the time we spent together, or to wonder what could have been, but to acknowledge that for a moment, we existed in the same space at the same time, affected one another greatly, and felt something we might have called love.
And love, however brief, deserves to be remembered.
We met in perhaps the most romantic place in the world - the New York City subway.
It happened by chance.
As the crowd leaving the music festival rushed madly onto the train, I happened to squeeze into a seat between you and your friend. You both had on bright blue VIP wristbands ("We got them for free!" your friend confided), and you politely offered me a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer. I took off my headphones and joined your conversation.
As we chatted, we realized we shared the same hobby, knew the same people, and were even getting off at the same stop. What were the odds? And just like that, we became friends.
So the next night, we met again.
The three of us brought pizza to the roof of my apartment, the glittering panorama of Midtown Manhattan looking over us. I played you my music, and you told me I should film a music video. I told you I might. Your friend had to leave early.
Afterward, I walked you over a mile home, through Times Square, then up along the West Side. We talked about our creative pursuits, our ambitions, and our fears. We bonded over how hard we were on ourselves.
On the way, you took me to a small park near your college. It was long after midnight, and we sat on a bench by the grass and shared music — Dominic Fike and Her’s and Grentperez. At one point, I looked in your eyes and thought I might kiss you. You told me later you hoped I would. But I didn't.
Instead, I delivered you to your apartment, went home, and wrote you a song.
A few days later, I invited you and your friend to film that music video. My heart was pounding as I called to ask — I’d never done anything like this before. But neither had you, and you were excited to try.
The week was a rush of activity. We filmed along the High Line and the Little Island, shooting around tourists trying to catch the sunset. We finessed a shot in the Rose Reading Room, and afterward, I brought the two of you to the secret flower garden on the roof of my school.
It was the highlight of my summer. I felt empowered — I was finally taking action to pursue my creative dreams. And this is embarrassing, considering how it ended, but I pictured the three of us growing old together as lifelong friends.
That weekend, we went out for a celebratory drink with my buddies. Your friend left early, as usual, but you stayed. I didn't think anything was going to happen that night. No, really. I had a feeling you liked me, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be more than friends.
But we drank and we danced and we got close. You challenged me to go drink for drink, and in the resulting haze, we lost my buddies and I ended up lying on a street curb, my head in your lap, and then there was an Uber ride, and then sometime, deep in the night, back at your place, I kissed you.
And for the next 48 hours, we were in love.
I didn’t record any of it in my journal; I guess we were too busy living. The memories feel like overexposed photographs, bright and indistinct, the details blurred, washed out. I present a collection of stills:
Ascending the Guggenheim, orbiting slowly, a word here, a touch there. Lying together on an ottoman at the bottom, watching the text on the walls spiral upwards.
Strolling along the Hudson, taking refuge from the summer sun under an umbrella on the pier. A cool blueberry slushy, one straw for two.
Rotting in your bed, examining the photos on your wall, your weird little collectible babies. Learning about your world, exchanging names and places and stories.
We were curious about each other. I admired how comfortable you were on camera and how seriously you took your craft. I liked your obsession with the technical specifications of filmmaking. You taught me how to build an audience.
You’d looked me up online and liked what you found. You thought I was ambitious and funny and kind. You liked that my friends spoke highly of me, and I liked who I was in your eyes.
So we spent 48 hours like this, mixing conversation with physicality, until that last night, when I held you in my arms and sang the song I’d written for you. And you cried, because it was honest, and because it was sad.
The next day, you flew off to London, and by the time you came back, everything had changed.
A girl I once loved had re-entered my life, and she consumed my attention, demanded my obsession. She tore me apart, ruined me. And suddenly, there was no space in my life for you.
Your anger was justified. You told me you felt played, strung along. You accused me of love bombing you. Your love was sacred, extraordinary — how could I have treated it like something disposable? Were you really just another conquest to me?
I'll spare us the details of the following months — the painful, half-hearted attempts to try to stay friends. Perhaps I should have immediately crushed any remaining hope, called it mercy. But I liked that you liked me, and I still liked who I was in your eyes.
So I dragged it out.
And your love died slowly, excruciatingly, until finally, fed up, you deleted me from your socials and cut me off entirely.
And so we became strangers again.
It's been a year since then, and it's early summer again.
You’re probably getting ready to graduate, eager to launch into the next great adventure. I could find out, all too easily, what you're up to. Click a few buttons and get caught up on every little detail of your life. But I won't.
But maybe one day you’ll get curious, look me up, and stumble across this letter.
And you'll remember those 48 hours we spent: the park bench, the museum, the river. The subway where we met. The music video I never released. The hurt, the betrayal, the disappointment. You’ll recall, for a brief moment, that we were in love.
And then you’ll forget me entirely.
👻 what I’ve been up to:
Go Knicks. Went to a watch party at MSG for Game 2 vs the Celtics — one of the most incredible sporting experiences of my life. Jalen Brunson pulled us back from a 20 point deficit, and the crowd went insane. All of New York is united in this moment.
Realistic and beautifully honest. Thank you for the read
i was crying my eyes out, reminded me of all the lost friendships and relationships, ahh! this was so good