There is a saying in my culture that translates to “good luck in games, back luck in love” and vice-versa, implying that those who have good luck in one department tend to have bad luck in the other. I was never one to believe in this kind of superstitions– but do you remember how I’d always lose every single game we played for the last four years of our relationship?

You’d checkmate me in chess since the moment I learned how to play. Since the moment you taught me how to play. I kept losing my queen against your bishop because I was too focused on the attack that I kept exposing my vulnerabilities to you. I love words and language, yet winning a Scrabble game seemed impossible. I once made 87 points with one word. You had written “heart,” and when I added “break” after it, it reached the “triple word score” square. Yet it was not enough to win me the game. I guess that for as long as I didn’t feel the word I had just spelled out, I was doomed to have bad luck in board games.

It’s been four months since you left. And I never believed in such superstitions. Last night, I played Burako with my family. Do you remember that game? When I opened the box, there was a sticky note with our last score: you won, I was second to last. Yet yesterday, I won the entire game. I won every single one of the four rounds. Every single one of them.

But if I allow myself to believe that bad luck in love– because that’s the only way to describe how I feel since you left– means good luck in games, then why did you keep winning for four years even when you had me?

My mind shifts between “it is the only way to explain how I win every board game since you left” and “why was it bad luck in love for you when you had me all along?” Perhaps I should have believed in this kind of superstitions earlier. Perhaps if I did, I would have realized that even all my love was not enough for you– because I’d always be your “bad luck.” Yet how can I be when I loved you so wholeheartedly? Perhaps I am just trying to replay every moment we lived together, looking for clues to justify why you left. Perhaps I will find flaws in every kiss you gave me and every “I love you” you said, but even then, my heart will weigh down with questions about your departure. Questions I will never be able to answer.

But I refuse to believe I was ever your “bad luck in love,” even if you won every single chess game.

Then perhaps, what if I was your game and your love at the same time? Would that defy the saying of “bad luck in love, good luck in games”? Because if I were both, then that would explain why you always won every single game– including the game I had become to you.