'I'm married to a woman. I still think about the man I met for one night in Nashville.'

Almost a decade ago, I met a boy behind the bar in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a musician and a painter, loved books and reading, and had READ MORE tattooed across his knuckles.

Against all travel advice (sorry mum and dad!), my best friend and I went back to his house after he closed the bar. We met his dogs, browsed an impressive record collection, and played Cards Against Humanity until the sun came up.

Nothing *happened*, but something happened that night.

Image: supplied.

If life were a rom-com, I'd say our souls became entwined. We felt like we'd known each other our whole lives. The connection was undeniable.

For the rest of my road trip, we tried to find a way back to each other. We spent the next six months planning how we might meet again.

Nine years later, the stars haven't aligned. We're both married to other people now.

But I haven't been able to shake the story. 

Over the years, I've questioned my own memories; wondered if I've made it bigger, deeper, more significant in my own mind. In these moments, I'll scroll through our messages from that time. I'll talk to my best friend, and she'll verify the night in question: yes, it happened. No, she's never seen anyone look at each other that way. 

I've even asked my therapist before, 'Can you love someone you only met for five hours?'

Amy still asks her best friend if the connection she felt with this man was real. Image: Supplied.

I messaged him when a tornado swept through his neighbourhood. He messaged me during the bushfires that ravaged the East Coast. My heart swelled when I saw his wedding photos in lockdown. He reached out to me when he saw I'd eloped, and when my first book came out. 

Not to sound completely self-serving, but I don't think that's a betrayal of my current relationship.

Our partners know about each other, too — about the innocent night we shared when we met and something bigger than any of us can understand clicked into place.

When we got together, my partner quickly became used to the fact that I am friends with — or at least, have a friendly-but-distanced relationship with — a few of my exes. She's met one of them.

Amy Lovat and her wife share a kiss. Image: Fox & Kin.

I keep her updated on their lives when someone gets married or has a baby or moves overseas or joins a cult (whether she cares or not!), because that's part of the unofficial contract for being in touch with ex-partners: none of it is done in secret.

Hiding conversations is where the line blurs and things could become toxic and unhealthy. (Also, it goes without saying that if someone is constantly banging on about their ex, that's a shining red flag.)

We learned early on what the other considers a betrayal of trust, and we haven't broken that. 

Before we met, my wife was a music journalist, and she interviewed a particular muso who was rising through the ranks of the Australian music scene. Sparks flew. The musician dedicated a song to her. My wife could've gone backstage, pulled on the thread, but something stopped her.

I think most of us have a story like that — a 'sliding doors' moment we can visit in our minds.

We talk about that moment, wondering what could have been. The musician is now very famous. Dodged a bullet or missed an opportunity, we muse.

For me, it's a perfect example of why what could have been, isn't what should have been.

We can have fun with the memories, ponder a different path, but it doesn't take away from what we have now. There's a difference between reminiscing and longing, between curiosity and flat-out fantasy. Having these thoughts and conversations doesn't mean we wish things had turned out differently. They're not driven by unhappiness or dissatisfaction. We're not looking for escape, fantasising about what could have been or how things might have been better.

The conversations and the wonderings are possible because my partner and I are relatively secure people in a happy, committed relationship. We've been together eight years, been through individual and couples' therapy during that time, and we're trusting, non-jealous, creative people with active imaginations.

Plus, I'm a writer, and as the iconic Nora Ephron said, 'Everything is copy.'

That's why I wrote the tattooed bartender into my novel.

Amy Lovat with her new novel, 'Big Feelings'. Image: Supplied.

In Big Feelings, Sadie Thomas is obsessed with love stories, so why can't she live out her own? She has just been dumped unexpectedly by her long-term girlfriend, Chase, when they were trying for a baby. Sadie takes a trip down memory lane, revisiting her past relationships to figure out what went wrong, every single time. She dissects the past to make sense of the present, uncovering family secrets and hard truths along the way.

I've never understood the urge to remove the past when you start dating someone new. No one is a blank slate. Our memories and experiences shape the fabric of who we are right now. The past makes up our present — what we've been through, who we've loved, the decisions we've made. So why try to pretend that the past doesn't exist?

Like my character Sadie, I choose to believe our lives are made up of a million tiny decisions that shape the next moment, and the next moment, and then the whole tapestry. I choose to believe there are many possibilities for how things could've turned out. I choose to believe there's another version of me dancing down a different timeline, possibly alongside the boy with the tattooed knuckles.

Maybe we'll never see each other again. Maybe we were just supposed to have those five hours. 

I don't know why the moment happened and why it's stuck with me, but I do know that it doesn't really matter. I still wake up and choose my wife, my life, every single day. The rest is history.

Amy Lovat's new novel Big Feelings, $34.99, is out now through Pan Macmillan.

Feature image: Fox & Kin.