Every time I drive by the lake we used to swim in, I am instantly brought back to 17.

It rewinds the story back to a time when love and lust intertwined when we swam in a freezing cold lake but the only thing we could feel was each other. It sets the precedent for the rest of your life, that if you don't feel this way with a lover it won't be anywhere close to good enough. You feel this unrelenting passion, and you just know.

It doesn't take months or years when you're 17, your eyes just match with another pair and suddenly you know each other's naked souls. He was the blue-eyed soccer player all my friends thought was cute. I was the blonde cheerleader all his friends had their eyes on. It was instant, we were both hooked. It took one date to know we were in love, to know that every person after them would just be their comparison.

Years later, years out, nothing compares to the feeling you get when you kiss them, it still feels the same. You looked so good in collared shirts, especially flannels. We would have all these playful competitions and the winner would tickle the loser, so it was like the loser won. You were my good luck charm at every cheer competition, and three-hour car rides were always more fun with you. We posted sappy pictures and liked all of each other's posts, with long good morning and goodnight texts every single day. We'd almost weekly spend $20 to go see a movie we never watched, kissing in the back of the movie theater for two hours not realizing the movie had ended ten minutes ago. After a long week of homework and practices, we couldn't wait to spend our weekends together. I'd wear your hoodie to bed because it smelled like you. You'd keep all the pictures I drew you, and look at them when you missed me.

I broke your heart, you broke mine. You cried in your bedroom and I cried in the front seat of your car. I had never known it was possible to miss something as much as I missed you.

We played Just Dance till midnight and stayed up to kiss each other for the New Year. Sneaking out, getting caught, getting lectured, not caring and doing it again the weekend after. Always getting caught. Our camera roll was a plethora of embarrassing off guard photos we took of one another. Every day I'd proudly wear one of the necklaces you gave me. Date nights were mostly just the two of us pretending to be grown-ups while you ate chicken nuggets, me insisting I would pay my half of the bill and you handing the waiter money before I noticed. Bragging about the other one to our friends who got tired of hearing how in love we were. You had this strange thing about everything having to be chocolate. Chocolate milk, Chocolate Ice Cream, all Chocolate. That's the thing about loving someone so fully, you know their quirks and favorites. I knew your favorite color, food, tv show. I knew all your favorites and you knew all of mine. It's like you don't intend to, but you study this person, better than you've ever studied for any test.

The photograph of us laughing and holding hands in the snow, we were never posed or planned, the moments caught on camera were real pictures of real love in a way that told a story without ever needing to tell it. You made me laugh every single day, in ways no one else ever could, by your tickle or your general demeanor. You were always approachable, comfortable, you felt like home.

We could tell our love story entirely by the conversations we had whispered to each other on the couch, whether we were alone or with other people. The words we whispered struck shivers down my spine, but not the kind that's scary. The kind that sends every nerve twisting and turning, the kind that literally makes you feel like there're butterflies in your stomach when you feel the whisper hit your ear and the words you dream of hearing and puts on a face that makes your heart flutter.

It was sentimental homemade gifts, it was Disney movies and cupcakes, it was leaving the movie theater early on double dates because we couldn't keep our hands to ourselves, it was phone calls, love letters, adventures, screaming, crying, breaking up, making up, fighting— it was raw. You had the most raw and unedited version of me.

It was thinking we'd never hurt each other, and feeling as though the world was breaking on our shoulders if we did. It was being scared to let each other back in, but falling back together anyway because no other person could match the love we had for each other. It was purposefully trying to make the other one jealous, hoping they'd come back. It was me telling you to say you still loved me before it was too late and you waiting two years to say anything. It was knowing that if it was meant to be, we'd find our way back home.

We always did.

It was spending months apart, still keeping tabs on each other and acting like we hadn't. It was hiding when we saw each other in public. It was trying to move on but never being able to, always falling back into each other's arms. Being there for the hard times, the good times, the tears and the scary parts. It was being there for every fear, tear, dream, wish, and smile. It was our parents yelling at us for hanging out during the school day, it was coming home late even though we left early.

Getting in fights with guys who tried to love me after you, tears into my pillow, the back seat of your car, it was you breaking my heart then liking my picture like it was all good, the Taylor Swift concert where she sang the song that made me think of you and I sang at the top of my lungs, it was real. It was so incredibly real. It was kissing you at 17 and thinking right then and there that I would never want to kiss another set of lips, that nothing could rival or compare to the fireworks. It was locking ourselves out of your car at the beach and spending the night looking at the stars because we had no way home.

We spent nearly four years entangled in each other, and though we've both had lovers since, we loved differently. I never allowed myself to feel out of control, I never allowed myself to let go or be free. You never gave anyone else all of your heart. Though we've walked the same streets, we walk them in a new way. We love and live in a way knowing that we can always come back home to the town we grew up in, to the lake, to our old bedrooms, to the old movie theater seats, to know that all it takes is one look, and we're done for.

You just can never love someone the same way you love someone for the very first time, you can never be that open or free as a two kids in love sneaking out to kiss during the school day. If it's true that you only get one great love, one unlike any other, you were mine. If it's true that you'll always look back, and say "they're the one that got away" you're that one. If it's true that most people end up with their high school sweetheart, we just may. Every fall, I am reminded of blue collared shirts and your warm embrace, I wish that just for a day I could go back or go forward with you by my side.

Are we different people? Maybe. Have we grown up? Kinda. Have things changed? Sorta, but every time we see each other we go back. We are those people, we are those kids, we stay the same. We are always the same. I kiss you and I'm home again. I'm 17 again.

I may not have been able to have told 17-year-old me the hurt that would come with missing you, I couldn't have told her we weren't going to be together forever and that you'd hurt me, I couldn't have told her I'd screw up plenty of times and that forever isn't always real, people leave. People always leave. I couldn't have told her that my world would heal and fall apart and heal again many, many, times after. I could not have told her that she wouldn't end up with her high school sweetheart, she wouldn't have believed me.

But I was lucky.

You were romance, you were plaid shirt days, you were snow days, you were midnight kisses, you were ice cream dates, you were tears, you were makeup kisses, you were the person ran to and told all my secrets. You are the reason I listen to Taylor Swift just to relive those days, the reason I look at my high school photographs.

We've grown and changed and probably have gone our separate ways, not everyone does end up with their high school sweetheart and not everyone's supposed to. But what if we are?