Before

(Album: Nicole - 2022)

You hid me in your dorm room
It was Halloweekend, I just flew across the globe
Twenty-two hours just to see you
Just to barely fit on your twin-sized bed
And talk about your cool new friend
Who I never met, who you dated as soon as I left

Carolina autumn
It had been a year since I saw you
Since we ended it
Had a year to grow into the girl you always wanted
Now we're holding hands as not quite friends
But not quite lovers
Well, we'll just pretend
You say, "It's complicated to make amends"
Well, is that the way that we're headed then?

And you couldn't answer me
Though you could pull me in while I brushed my teeth
And let your hands both freely speak
Like I wasn't ever gonna leave, leave

You were all I'd ever known
And now I'm supposed to love you from a distance
Like it's nothing, like it's instant
And you say, "Let's just see where this goes"
And I don't know how or why you seem just fine
'Cause I'm having to grasp that you're somehow not mine anymore
It's so cruel how things are only almost like they were before

Like they were before
Like they were before
Like they were before

We walk downtown and it's charming
You're alarmingly disarming
Yeah, we've got forty-eight hours left
Before I fly back to my death
While you stay just fine and feel alive
South of the Mason-Dixon line
Where everyone closes shop at nine
Where you could somehow finally find

What you were desperately looking for
Funny how you thought that was gonna be New York
With our chalkboard walls and slanted floors
Oh, we could've had that and so much more
Ask your new lover what it's like to be given
A real fighting chance before you wish her, "Good riddance"
Did anything ever really count
Or was I just a two-year practice round?

You were all I'd ever known
And now I'm feeling stupid, you're forbidden
They say, yeah, we were something, too bad we were children
Ooh, I don't know where to go
And I don't know how or why you seem just fine
'Cause I'm looking at you and God knows you're not mine anymore
It's so cruel how things will never be the way they were before

Like they were before
It's almost just like how it was before
But it's not anymore