To The Boy Who Couldn’t Love Me Back

Two weeks ago you called me and told me you missed me. Two weeks ago you told me I made you smile more than anyone else and that you couldn’t believe how great our banter was. Two weeks ago you pulled me to the floor and kissed me. Four weeks ago you made me wear your jacket as we walked around downtown after dark, and as we waited for the walk sign we looked at each other and kissed. I felt every nerve ending stand on end and couldn’t imagine a more perfect moment.

Fast forward a month. We went from banter and talking and caring and kissing and, what I thought was loving, to silence. You announced that four months ago you realized you would never love me. You strung me along in a twisted maze and let me live in a fantasy world disguised as reality. You told me dragons were real but instead it was you that breathed fire, scorching every part of me as you told me the truth.

I went to bed knowing I’d be awakened by your phone call, keeping my phone turned up to the highest ring. I woke up to your texts and knew I wouldn’t have to hear my alarm because it was timed so well. The first time I heard my alarm for work I cried, not because of the noise but because of the implication.

We’d been a vase that was turned so I only saw perfection but you saw the crack down the back that the glue couldn’t quite hold. The worst part wasn’t the illusion, it was the fact that you never even told me the crack was there until water overflowed supplied by the tears that I didn’t know existed within me.

And you’re fine. You’re on your computer as I type, trolling the internet and watching videos. You’ll go to bed and cuddle with your cat. You’ll wake up and drive your sputtering jalopy to work. At no point will you think twice about the girl who cared too much because she was never told not to. You had the duration of our relationship to move on while I’m stuck with false memories. I want to remember the good times but they’re tarnished with your hidden truths. I can’t remember without questioning if any of it was true.

You’ll never see the impact. You won’t see the tears I’ve cried, the delusional begging to have this all be a bad dream. You won’t see my opinion of you change. You know you caused hurt but not seeing it makes it easy to ignore. What a luxury it must be to be able to be okay; I have no such luxury. I’ll continue to mourn the loss of the relationship, the loss of my constant, the loss of someone that I imagined as a source of encouragement, the loss of my belief in trust, the loss of my former reality being overshadowed by my new one. And you’ll be okay, watching videos and trolling the internet with your cat, going to sleep easily each night.