Why Did You Come Back?

When I think of Calvin, I can visualize the moments that are imprinted in my mind that I shared with him throughout the years like a video clip edit.

The moment I saw him I had to turn off my instant attraction, attention, and need for validation from him because I was in an relationship with his best friend. I had the idea that I had to be loyal to this one because that’s what I wanted to be given to me and what I understood that person was going to give to me.

His friendship and influence and sexual attraction and need for validation from him has pushed me to want more and be more, and continue to want more and be more with or without him in my life. Having had him disappear from my life in such an abrupt way was painful, destructive, but somehow strengthening really making us both decide what we wanted in life and still wondering if we had unfinished business together.

Why did you come back?

Max’s words echoed in her head from time to time with his theories as to why Calvin never really left her alone and poked at her…

“He wants to fuck you. You’re on his list” Max would snarl. “I’ll beat his ass for contacting you again!”.

“No!” I’d plead, “There’s no proof he wants me physically anymore…He said it himself” I’d tell him at the time wanting to believe that maybe I could be on his list, that maybe he kept coming back to me because he wanted something more from me but just thought it was hot to hide it until he blew with lust over me.

Flash to 1.5 months later, Calvin had me undressing myself for him as both of us raced each other to orgasm faster…he won.

One look at me doing what I was doing he couldn’t last…it only took a year for him to finally act on his sexual intentions with me – but he wasn’t single.

Conflicted now between telling someone you didn’t want to be mistress to them making you his, I have to wonder why Calvin is doing this all of a sudden and if it’s because he realizes I can give him everything he wants, or if that’s just what he does to his partners when he’s upset with them.

He came back to me knowing I was in love with him….to do this with me….while with the girl he made me jealous over and leave over a year ago.

“That’s not fair” Calvin said to her while he was trying to get her to be dominant and command him to take his clothes off..

No Calvin – the aftermath of this isn’t fair.

Am I your life boat?

Why did you come back…

I can’t get Over Calvin

When I think of Calvin, it feels like pressing play on a private reel only I have access to—clips and snapshots, moments I never meant to memorize but now couldn’t erase if I tried. It’s not a single picture, it’s a series of flashes, like the way sunlight comes through blinds, fractured but piercing. I see him, I hear him, I even feel him —little sensory imprints that replay without permission, without my control.

The first time I met him, I knew instantly I had to shut something down inside myself. Attraction, curiosity, the stupid flutter that came up in my chest like bubbles from soda he hates. He wasn’t just any man—he was my boyfriend’s best friend. Max. My boyfriend at the time, the one I thought I was committed to, the one I believed would give me loyalty because that’s what I was trying to give him. I remember thinking: no matter what happens, I won’t let myself betray this.

So I turned it off. Or tried to. I turned down the dial on noticing Calvin’s shoulders and triceps when he leaned back and placed his hands behind his head when he was confidently speaking or vibing….how his eyes seemed to both laugh at me and strip me down at the same time. I told myself that being faithful meant ignoring anything that made me feel alive outside of Max.

But he looked so good without his shirt on.

The body doesn’t really care about rules. The mind doesn’t either. I found myself watching Calvin in ways that weren’t exactly appropriate. Every conversation with him was a balancing act—don’t laugh too hard at his jokes, don’t let your gaze linger, don’t let him see you imagining what it would be like if…

And yet, he must have known. Something passed between us in those early days, something that lived in the space between words.

Still, I clung to loyalty. I told myself: I want to be loyal, therefore I will be loyal. I thought love was just a matter of discipline, and maybe it was, but desire was a different animal.

Over time, Calvin became more than just Max’s best friend. We somehow were allowed to overstep boundaries, and doors opened for us together to create something more between us. He became this strange force in my life. His friendship, his influence, the way he saw me—the way he came home every day after work and just unloaded about it to me, how I never want to say goodbye to him – it made me want more. More of him, more of myself, more than the small life I was settling into. He made me restless. He made me hungry.

When he vanished because I was done convincing myself that I could just be a friend to him and he can choose another woman over me —when he disappeared from my life without warning because I tried to apologize right away and take it back—it was like someone ripped the oxygen out of the room.

The abruptness of it left me spinning. It hurt. It was destructive in a way I couldn’t put into words, and yet—it also made me stronger. I started asking myself what I wanted, what I deserved, what my life was supposed to look like. But I never stopped wondering if Calvin and I had unfinished business.

Every motorcycle, every truck, every man with a baseball cap and beard, broad shoulders, and tall body reminded me of Calvin.

Being with Max still at the time didn’t make it easier. His words still echo sometimes, the way he’d sneer when Calvin’s name came up.

“He wants to fuck you. You’re on his list.”

He said it like Calvin was keeping score, like women were trophies to be collected. I’d protest, I’d defend Calvin even though I didn’t know if I believed myself.

“No. There’s no proof he wants me like that. He told me he didn’t.” I’d say it with a kind of desperation, needing it to be true, needing to believe that Calvin’s presence in my life wasn’t just lust disguised as friendship.

But deep down, some part of me wanted Max to be right. I wanted to believe I was on Calvin’s list. That I mattered enough for him to keep circling back. That every time he returned after disappearing, it was because he couldn’t let me go.

Fast forward a year, we’re sharing one night. One night he made some of my dreams come true – it happened – I finally knew I wasn’t crazy and Calvin DID still think of me and want me. Calvin and I, finally, no pretense, no careful boundaries. Clothes falling off: hands wanting to be everywhere; that raw kind of hunger you can’t fake. We raced each other to see who could get there first. He won. He barely lasted after seeing me, after seeing how incredibly sexy I was.

And for a split second, I thought: finally. After all this time, finally.

But then reality crashed down. We said goodnight, and the next day came: He wasn’t single. He wasn’t free.

And I was left in this tangled place, conflicted and ashamed. I never wanted to be someone’s mistress, never wanted to be the secret, the side piece. But that’s what I had become in that moment. I told him – I didn’t want to ever be this person, and I believed he was always the victim and would NEVER be this CHEATING person.

Why did you come back Calvin?

I tried to convince myself maybe it meant something deeper. Maybe Calvin finally acted on it because he realized I could give him everything he wanted. I can never be replaced. I’m the one he wants to try to be happy with in life. Maybe this was the beginning of us, not just a betrayal of someone else.

Another part of me couldn’t help wondering if I was just collateral damage. If this was just what he did when he was unhappy with the girl he left me for.

Because yes—he left me once, or at least it felt like he did. He made me jealous over another girl, flaunted her in a way that felt deliberate, like a knife twist. And then, after all that, after choosing her, he still came back to me. Knowing I was in love with him. Knowing what he was doing.

There’s a scene that replays in my head: he was trying to get me to take control, to command him. “Tell me to take my clothes off, I give you all the power” he said, like it was some kind of game, like giving me power erased everything else – everyone else.

“That’s not fair,” he pleaded with her once when she didn’t give him an answer he wanted, a strange vulnerability in his voice wanting her to be more dark and descriptive with him.

No, Calvin. What’s not fair is everything that came after you and I gave in to our passion to each other again.

The silence, the guilt, the wondering if I was just an escape hatch for you.

Am I your lifeboat? The one you cling to when the waves get too rough with her? Or am I just the girl who never said no loud enough?

The questions haunt me because I don’t have answers. Because every time I try to pin down what he means to me, the reel starts playing again, clips of moments that refuse to let me go. His laugh, his eyes, the way he said my name, the way he helped me shape my life and who I am today, the way he vanished, the way he returned, the way he smiles when I kiss him and back away slightly…the way he whispers “fuck” in my ear hastily…

Maybe this story was never about loyalty or betrayal. Maybe it was always about wanting, about the messy ways desire rearranges us.

All I know is that Calvin lives in the unfinished spaces of my life. In the gaps between decisions. In the ache of wondering what could have been, and what never should have been.

And maybe, just maybe, in the quiet places I don’t admit to anyone else—I still want more.

I love you unconditionally and always Calvin.