I Wasn’t The One Left Behind—You Were

I bite my tongue. The metallic taste of blood pulls me back to reality—it almost feels like relief to feel physical pain instead. It’s not that I love you. I never did, and I don’t think I ever will anyway, at least not after all that I found out. But in so little time, I opened up to you, spoke my truth too soon and thought that you were doing the same. I sometimes trace it back to my favorite traits of yours. To your touch. To your soft hair. To your confidence in giving equal pleasure.

It turns out that you lied, just like all guys that you harshly told me weren’t worth it. You even went as far as being worse, because not only did you lie, but you let yourself believe in your own words.

I shared my pain with you because you made me feel like it was okay to do so. I wonder if your girlfriend feels like that too. I wonder if her newfound pregnancy being the reason you got back together felt like a strong enough reason to go back. If she felt that as she was confiding her entire world to you, you were out there hooking up with the girl who was brave enough to share her feelings with you. If she felt my presence when you lied to her while explaining where you were. If she understands that your oh-so-profound love is just not that faithful.

You told me we were friends. How convenient, right? And so I thought, Okay, let’s keep sneaking out of work every single day that we can to meet up, to talk about everything and nothing at the same time. Talk and talk, pretending as if we both don’t have lives of our own when we exit that personal world of ours. But it all went down pretty smoothly, didn’t it? Thank God for the internet stalking for allowing me to find out what you were never going to tell me.

And I guess that even in the middle of all this, I wasn’t the one who got left behind. You were. Because it doesn’t matter that at the end of the day, you go back to your girlfriend to maintain the perfect little façade, when in reality you’re just lying to yourself because it’s easier and safer to do so. It doesn’t matter that I still want your company and your voice and your thoughtful advice.

Because even as we went down, as I saw the despair in your eyes as you asked me to stay because “we are meant to be in each other’s lives in any way that we can have it,” I knew that I was not the one who was stuck on our loop. You were.