From The Girl You Missed Out On

You’re not losing any sleep over this and in fact, you have never lost any sleep over me, like I did for months over you. When I first met you, I couldn’t stop looking at you. I felt like I recognized you from somewhere. Another life may be. But I knew right that moment, how badly I wanted to get to know you and be your friend.

When we started to talk, for the first time, I felt like I found someone I never wanted to stop talking to. You were the kindest guy. You were genuine, honest and so passionate about life that I wished I could be more like you. I realized quickly how much I liked you.

But I never said anything. You were in love with my best friend. And if there was a chance she wanted you back, I would never stand in the way. But she never felt the same for you. And I wondered if you would ever feel for me, the way you did for her.

High school ended and a couple months later we started talking again. I tried to count how many beats my heart would skip when I would turn on my phone and see your name. I struggled to remember how to breathe again after you first kissed me. But you didn’t even come close to feeling any of this. You stopped talking to me and disappeared. You said you were confused and just experimenting. Your head was not in the right place.

I did my best to block you out of my mind because I knew the last thing on your mind was me. I don’t know why but I always felt that down the road, you would find it in yourself to apologize to me. In spite of how you treated me, I still believed you were the kind guy I first met but you just lost your way. I had secretly already forgiven you.

And I was right. You apologized to me and owned up to everything. I had every right to be mad, you said. You wanted a second chance at a friendship. It was then I was forced to admit to myself that I still had feelings for you.

Months went by that I didn’t hear from you. One day, out of the blue, you messaged me. We began to talk every week. I thought maybe this time will be different. It was a Friday night. I went to bed holding my breath because I knew in a couple of seconds my phone will go off and your name would appear.

You kept me up all night telling me about a girl that strung you along and broke your heart. She was the ideal girl. She was everything you wanted. I recall you mentioned her before and I with trembling hands told you to ask her out again instead of giving up if you thought she was the one.

But I stupidly assumed you had moved past it. I didn’t realize how much you were still hurting until that night. I felt as if someone stabbed me with a dagger and left it there. For the first time, I wished someone in my family would walk into my room and hold me because I couldn’t stop crying.

I wished you could talk about me the way you did about her. Everything I always imagined you saying about me, you did, but it was for her.

You still couldn’t stay away from her no matter how much she screwed with your brain. I wondered why you could never feel that way about me.
So I decided to be your friend because that is what you needed. But it turned out, you started to see me as maybe something more. The next 4 months were some of the greatest 4 months. I knew from the first time I started to like you, that I wanted you to be my first kiss. And you were. I used to think to myself, if I had to lose my virginity to anyone, it would be to you. And I did. Although you made it clear you weren’t ready for a relationship and didn’t promise me anything, I couldn’t help but feel at times that I was your girlfriend.

I appreciate you honestly saying you liked me back but that you weren’t ready to commit as not to lead me on. Thank you for not abandoning me every time we slept together. Thank you for the regular texts and letting me know that I was on your mind no matter how early or late it was. Thank you for keeping me up at nights to talk and making me feel like there was someone out there that cared about me enough to be willing to give up their sleep.

But you know what made me the happiest? Every time you messaged me, it wasn’t to hook up but just to talk, even when there was nothing to talk about.

But I walked away from you. You told me you didn’t see anything more with me after I confronted you. You cared about me enough not to touch another girl even though we were in no committed relationship because you knew deep down how much that would upset me. But you didn’t care enough to promise me that nothing was going to happen between you and anyone else.

You didn’t care enough to want to be with just me. You let me go so easily and it was then I realized how little I had meant to you even though you opened yourself up to me to a degree that had always been hard for you.

I went to bed that night knowing my phone will never go off again with your name. I was losing count of how many times I cried myself to sleep over you.

For the next few months, I would find myself stopping suddenly in the middle of something and feel hot tears burning in my eyes. I would replay every time you kissed me as if you were actually there. I would remember you holding my hand and I would try so hard not to smile. But this was a fight I would lose every time.

You probably don’t even remember, but at times, I would catch you watching me as I put on my lipstick or even stare at me while you played your guitar. I guess those moments meant nothing to you. To me, however, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I felt sad for every girl that rejected you in the past because they had no idea what they were missing.

It wasn’t until I looked back at the red flags that were there at the time that I forced myself to overlook, I realized how badly I needed to grow up.

Slowly, I began to picture myself with someone else. I have not met him yet, but because of you, I know exactly how he is going to be. He will make the effort to take me out to dinner, the movies or even a walk in the park – wherever he can get the chance to know me.

I wished you had done all that. I recall subtly trying to get you to. I never pushed it because I didn’t want to push you away. I wasn’t ready to lose you.

He will make the time to meet with me so he can talk to me face to face instead of through a screen. He would not see me as an option. He would patiently try to win me over. He would be the one that chooses me above every other girl because he would see me as a woman worth walking through fire for instead of a girl who was just convenient.

Once I realized how much of all of this you were not, I stopped thinking about you. For once, in what feels like forever, I wake up and you are not my first thought, second or even third. I pick up my phone and don’t feel sad when I turn it on and your name is not there. When it goes off, no matter how late at night, my heart no longer skips beats hoping that it is you.

If the pain returns, and I can feel my insides tighten, my eyes remain dry. The memory of you doesn’t hurt me the way it did before. In fact, the memory of you does nothing for me at all.

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder that some part of you must have known how I felt for you because in all honesty, I tried very much to show it. I think you enjoyed having this power over me. It gave you confidence. I was just an ego-booster for you. I gave you back the confidence every girl in your past took.

You really made me believe I was important to you and that it would hurt you for me to not be in your life. You made me feel safe when you told me I made the right choice to pick you as my first. To be honest, I regret losing mine to you. I wish I had waited for someone who I meant something to because clearly, I didn’t even mean anything to you as a friend.

You made me believe you appreciated me every time you had your arms around me and pulled me close. You made me believe a small part of you loved me as at least a friend if not more, and maybe you just weren’t ready to realize it yet.

I probably never crossed your mind for a second since I walked away from you. And it still makes me mad to this day that I could be so naïve. It hurts even more to think that you may never know how hard I tried for any chance that you could see me like how you saw all those girls from your past that turned you down.

You never chased me like you did them, because I was already there ready to be with you. You never fought for me or held on to me like you did them, because deep down, you knew you already had me.

You never made me any promises. You told me straight up what we were and I agreed. You may think that I have no right to be mad at you. But I am.

I am mad at you for taking advantage of my patience and not even realizing how patient I had been with you that goes beyond just those 4 months. I am mad you saw my passion for you, passion that you never had for me, yet, you never stopped me. I am mad for you not even trying to stop me or saying anything to comfort me when I walked away from you.

Most of all, I am mad at you for telling me you liked me when it is clear now, that you never actually did.

I can say with confidence that I have moved on from you. I surprised myself when I realized ever since the last time I saw you, I stopped to look at my reflection in mirrors or glass windows like I always used to. I haven’t taken a picture of myself in 8 months. I let myself believe, that how you saw me, was the only way anyone could ever see me. I wasn’t good enough, because you didn’t think I was good enough.

But somehow, I was able to get passed that too. I feel like an adult and not the child that fell for you all those years ago in high school. This new me, wouldn’t look at you twice because in all honestly, even though it took me an eternity to grasp it, you are not all that great or even smart as I had wanted to believe.

If you were smart, you wouldn’t push aside a girl that was ready to be with you from the beginning. You wouldn’t turn down a chance to be in a relationship with someone who stayed up all night to comfort you, while you cried about another girl.

If you were smart, you wouldn’t reject a girl that never stopped seeing something special in you when no other girl could. You wouldn’t have placed her as number 2, knowing that you had always been her number 1.

But you know the big reason you are the not so “good guy” you always claimed you were? If you were smart, you wouldn’t walk away so easily and break the heart of the first girl that ever truly loved you.

I was never the victim; it is you. You lost something great.

Sincerely,
The girl you missed out on.