I want to tell you about a boy. A boy who was very very broken. A boy who, when I met him, was beautiful.

I want to tell you about the first time I saw him "say" anything to me. "Tell me things," he wrote. So I did.

I want to tell you about how I didn't want to go on that first date but everyone pushed me, because he seemed nice and it was "just a date." I want to tell you that I called my best friend crying my eyes out an hour before I was supposed to leave and completely switched the whole date plan around last minute to calm my anxieties and to include watching the first preseason Caps game together instead of something fancy. I want to tell you that I thought he would know how broken I felt as soon as he looked at me.

I want to tell you how he actually called me before that date to say he was on his way and how I was shocked that people still knew how to use the phone. I want to tell you that that was the first way I knew he was special. But I want to tell you that I secretly think it would've been his excuse to bail if I sounded like a man. (No offense taken...I totally get it.)

I want to tell you that I still laugh to myself when I think about how in the smallest parking garage we ended up being on two different sides when we met that night. Maybe that should've been my first clue that we would never be at the same place at the same time. But I want to tell you that I can still picture him in that back alley when he finally met me on my side.

I want to tell you that I only meant to stay out for 2 hours that night and it ended up being 4 and that when I left I posted a FB status, nerdily quoting Dumbledore. "Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." I want to tell you that for the first time in a month, I went to bed with a smile on my face.

I want to tell you that when I left the next day for a work trip, I wasn't concerned about him but I was definitely intrigued by him. I want to tell you that I was more interested in meeting locals to show me around (which I never had the time for). But I want to tell you that he "yelled" at me (through texts) about texting while driving because he wanted to make sure that I came back so that he got a second date.

I want to tell you that while away, he invited me on date 1.5 (his best friend in tow) for the night I got back, and I wasn't sure I would go. But I did. I want to tell you that the Redskins lost (go figure) and that the 15 minute car ride home, turned into 3 hours of talking (and making out), and another hour phone call once we both got home. I want to tell you that next season when he pulls out his Sean Taylor jersey, it will still have bronzer on the sleeve a year later and he'll no doubt think about that night.

I want to tell you that he wanted me to introduce myself to his sister the next night by telling her that I made out with her brother the night before but I thankfully dodged that awkward encounter. And I want to tell you that I prepped so much for date 2.5 the night after that, searching through my best friend's closet before settling on something I already had with me.

I want to tell you that I can still picture him asking me if it was 8 o'clock yet on Gchat that morning and can still feel him pick me up when he hugged me that night, telling me he had been waiting all day for it. I want to tell you that it was beautiful out, the strung lights were perfect, and that I had no idea about craft beer so I let him order for me (the first of many times). I want to tell you that I still get weekly notifications when that restaurant has new beer from when he signed me up for their email newsletter that night.

I want to tell you that he told me we could do whatever I wanted that night. I want to tell you that I still have our dumb selfie from the bar afterwards and that I was really nervous because he was the first new person to meet my friends in years. But I want to tell you that I trusted it and him. And I want to tell you that when he told me he wanted to sleep together that night without "sleeping together", after a brief hesitation, I trusted that too.

I want to tell you that that night we talked for hours until 4am about everything. Our pasts, our families, our futures, our goals, the good, the bad, the dirty, the broken hearts, the broken moments, the raw, things we were proud of, things we hid from others, the stuff you usually hide from someone at the beginning. The stuff you clean up in the spit polished version of yourself. I want to tell you that he told me that he wasn't sure of what he was looking for but that he knew he was looking for a best friend. I want to tell you that I told him not to waste my time but that I never felt such ease with someone from the beginning. I want to tell you that we were together almost everyday from there on out.

I want to tell you that for a month I was on cloud nine. I felt in control. I felt happy. I want to tell you that we got comfortable fast and that I have smelled his armpits, licked his face, heard him puke (& vice versa), rubbed icy hot on his achy hockey spots, seen him cry, and wrapped his sprained wrists in icepacks.

But I want to tell you that as fast as he was open, he closed off. And that when I mentioned him spending my birthday with me at the beach he immediately started looking at his time off and then just as quickly told me that if it didn't work out between us, he didn't want the memory of my 30th birthday to be with some bum, so he didn't want to go. I tried to understand. It wasn't a big deal. Maybe that should have been another clue that there would always be hesitation in "whatever this was."

I want to tell you that a week or two later I met my ex's girlfriend for the first time and as much as I was over it, I likened it to a car accident of which you feel the impact the next day. A lot of delayed emotion that hit me. I want to tell you that I handled it fine, but that would be a lie. I don't want to tell you that I lost it, but I did, and I just needed someone to be there. I want to tell you that after a lot of dismissing of my feelings, he finally told me to come over but played video games the entire time while I cried. I want to tell you that it got better as the day went on, but all I can tell you is that by the end of the night he hooked up his computer to his television in order to be able to lay next to me, while still playing. I want to tell you that as much as it could've been better, I accepted that as all he could give to me that day. I want to tell you that during that first week in September he told me that he is good during the good times and bad during the bad times. I want to tell you that those words rung clear in my head that November day.

But I want to tell you that when my birthday did come, he expressed how much he missed me when I was away, told me to come over the night before my birthday, toasted me at midnight, let me listen to whatever music I wanted to, sent beautiful flowers to my condo, and took me to a Caps game where we sat 4 rows from the ice. I want to tell you that my birthday was perfect for so many reasons, but he completed it. And that selfie that night, it was burning Red :).

I want to tell you that after that, everything changed. December was awful and we never recovered. I want to tell you that we had so many talks and that the arms length that he held me at grew. I want to tell you that he would say it was because of the talks but I would say the talks were because of the arms length. The whole chicken or the egg conundrum, ya know?

I want to tell you that he would come back at the end of December, and that I spent his birthday with him when nobody was around, and Christmas night with him while his family did their own thing, and New Year's Eve with him after begging for something to do, and Valentine's Day with him, where he toasted to "the inevitability of another fight, being in a weird place in life and having someone to cuddle with."

I want to tell you that it crashed and burned again by mid January and that I have been trying to hold it together since. I want to tell you that I fell for that boy. Maybe it was the rawness of him at the beginning. Maybe it was the night I stood inside a garage listening to him calm a friend down who was about to make the biggest decision of his life. Maybe it was the fact that he looked really good on ice or that he wanted me to critique his play after every game I watched. Maybe it was because he didn't love himself so I wanted him to know that he was worthy. Because frankly, everyone deserves to feel that in life.

I want to tell you that I have to let him go because that boy still doesn't know what he wants in life and I do, and that the up and down is torture on the heart of a girl like me. I want to tell you that it took me almost 3 years to get to where I let someone new back in and it was totally worth it. I want to tell you that it's easy to fall in love for the first time in life at age 16 or whenever it may happen to you. We have nothing to compare it to. We just kinda jump in blind. It's beautiful and risky, but we don't appreciate it for that. I want to tell you that it's so hard to fall for someone again after the world jades you, after having your heart broken multiple times, battling through a marriage ending, and 14 years later at age 30 in a new age of technology. But I want to tell you that because of him, I know it's possible. And I am so thankful.

I want to tell you that my affair with this boy ironically lasted a full hockey season, as I write this on the same night that the Caps exit the playoffs in game 6 of the 2nd round once again. September to May. A lifetime and, at the same time, the blink of an eye. I want to tell you that he is not a bad person and that if you are one to so quickly classify someone as "good" or "bad," you will be in for a rough ride in life. I want to tell you that he is broken, just like you and I, but that his heart still works when he allows it to, and that I have felt it and heard it beat loudly.

And I want to tell you that if you are so lucky to have someone so handsome and complex ask you to "tell him things" one day, I hope you remember it all as clearly as I do.