I found out unintentionally today that mom has kept all the pictures she has ever taken with any digital camera, and she still had some pictures of you and me on her laptop. you were sitting on my lap, someplace like a restaurant or a party (I have to admit I wasn't at all interested the background). we were laughing at something or other, looking like we were having the time of our lives. fuck me, you were so beautiful.all I have of you are happy memories. I get that pictures are very selective, in that they're not going to be taken during bad times, but still: all I ever remember of you was us being happy together, at least until the end. just twice in our relationship proper that we had any sort of disagreement, and neither caused any problems afterwards. I still don't understand how you could have discarded everything we had, when everything we had meant the world to both you and me.
it's a good job the rest of my life is working out reasonably well for me at the moment, because 20-year-old me would have spiralled horribly at seeing your perfect smile, frozen in a photograph, knowing he would never once get to experience it in real life ever again. 34-year-old me had a hard enough time processing it as it was.
and all it took was one picture.