I wished you would have stayed. I wished you and I would have lived happily ever after. I wished this nightmare would have ended and we’d be at Dairy Queen once again. But this isn’t the movie Aladdin, and unlike him, I don’t have three wishes. 

My heart was 1,720 miles away in your Army uniform where I last left it. I made the trip out East to you. My heart raced as I boarded the flight that would bring me back to you again. My eyes searched for your face in the crowd as I entered the airport, shaking because there was a blizzard out there. I didn’t find your face– I found his. He looked like you and talked like you, but it wasn’t you. He smiled with your lips, but it didn’t feel warm anymore. I ran into your arms and there you were, but I pulled away and it wasn’t you, it was him again. 

For three nights I fell asleep next to a stranger who looked like you. For three nights I asked myself where you were. For those three nights I wondered if I had made a mistake. For those three nights, I missed you. 

On the last night I saw you I asked what happened. I asked where you went and for a few minutes you came back. You told me you were still there, the boy who sat in my car belting out the words to Justin Bieber’s song “Baby.” I laughed and you sang it once again. For five minutes you were there again. It was you. For five minutes we had a happily ever after. 

But after five minutes, you were gone. Your smile faded and he came back. I told him I had to go, it was time I came back to reality. I asked him for my heart back, and you were hesitant at first but he gave it back to me. You had kept it warm, and it was well taken care of. I hugged him goodbye and kissed you goodbye. I never looked back, I never went back to that pure white, snowy town. I just remember you and him and how much I had wanted you to come back but he had won the battle and you were gone.