To The Boy Who Was Never Really Able To Love Me The Way I Needed

I know you only called me because you didn’t feel like walking home alone. Her hand wasn’t entwined with yours. You felt lonely. The alcohol in your system made you impulsive, the desperation in my heart made me weak. Your name pops up on my screen, you’re calling me. The first time you’ve reached out in months. Even though you were the one who left here without looking back. You’re the one who left me to be with her. Though that isn’t what happened, is it? There was never a choice of me or her. I was never an option, just someone you could count on.

Dependable. Forgiving. Eager.

These are the words I use to describe our one-sided relationship. I helped give you structure by structuring my days around you. Did you notice? I’ll never know because you’re gone. You’re with her and I tried to convince myself it’s because you can’t bear the thought of being alone. That she’s the tether to the world in which you feel safe. But why couldn’t I tether you to this world? Why didn’t you want to be in this world with me like I wanted to be in this world with you? I still don’t understand how I could love you so much and yet you had no idea.

Did you ever consider me? Were you and I ever a fleeting thought in the back of your mind as your arms wound around my shoulders and your head dipped into the crook of my neck? When I felt the world under my feet shift, did you ever for once think you could have chosen me? Was there a choice? Could I have done something to make you believe there was a choice?

When I saw your name light up my phone I felt my heart race in my throat. I answered, dependable as always. Forgiving your silence. Eager to talk to you. You were happy, alcohol chipping away at the armor you carry with a sword of indifference. If we were together I knew we’d be touching. Innocent hugging, handholding, memories I could take snapshots of while you just threw them away.

You told me you loved me on the phone and my heart burst. I paused, but didn’t say it back. Because my “I love you” is not in the same language as yours. Yours is a love born out of gratitude. Grateful you had a dependable soul when you were lost. Grateful you had someone willing to meet you even if you may not show up. Grateful that even when you didn’t show up, you knew you would always be invited back.

But I can’t do that anymore. I can’t say I love you back because I don’t. I think I might hate you. Hate that I let my soul, my body, my heart be consumed by you when you were never consumed by me. I was merely a fleeting support system. Support until you went back to a life where you knew if you failed you could still fly. Why couldn’t I be those wings for you? Why couldn’t I ease your fears and make you brave? I hate that you never saw inside my heart. A heart so big and bursting with love that I was willing give to you so freely and yet you never took. An option. I just wanted to be an option. But I never was, and I never will be.

So please, take your pleasant alcohol induced conversations and have them with another girl. Give them to someone else who is dependable, forgiving, and eager. I can’t be that for you anymore. I need to be able to depend on myself for my happiness. I need to be able to forgive myself for hating the way you made me feel. And I need to be eager to change. To open my heart to someone willing to let me in. Someone who sees me as an option, Someone who wants to choose me. I just want to be chosen. I deserve this. I deserve more than you.

So this is goodbye to the boy I never really had. I need to be free.