Maria Monrovia

They tell you that you are “too much” because the don’t know how to tell you the truth — that they are the ones who lack the ability to feel the way you do.

Maybe that’s how you know you’ve fallen out of love: I spent so many years underlining your sentences and dog-earing your pages, but in the end I didn’t feel the need to reread your passages or explore your hidden meanings. I just wanted to move on to something better.

Being in love with someone who is in love with two people is like plucking flower petals off of daisies. “He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not.” One moment so sure, the next my confidence wavering. Do you love me? Did you ever? 

I’m the girl everyone leaves. The one they promise the world to before they disappear. The one they say they love, they swear, their words like honey laced with poison. I’m the girl who always ends up alone.

I’ve never been able to figure out when our story ends — maybe it never will. Maybe we’re destined to be a series of chance meetings, just vignettes decorated with apple orchards and jack-o’-lanterns and crisp air that tastes like pure nostalgia.

Maybe the truth is that I want to give you that second chance — a small part of me longs to — but I can’t be that person anymore. Because people don’t change even when they promise to, and I can’t keep holding onto hope when all signs point to the cold, hard truth: you already hurt me once, and pretending that you won’t do it again is just me fooling myself.

It is something that can’t be captured on camera, one that can not be stuffed into a two-hour reel of film. We may not be vibrant hues or swoon-worthy confessions, but we are real, and we are messy, and we are something more than Hollywood can handle.

What do you do when the person who breaks your heart was the person who once made you feel whole? How do you put yourself together again when you’re always left feeling like something is missing?

If you’re going to blame someone, blame him. Blame the boy for leaving, for hurting you, for choosing someone else in the end. Blame him for getting you caught up in a game, for leading you on, for playing with your heart and then leaving it behind when he got bored.

Be with someone who accepts every version of yourself — from sunny days to hurricane, the good and the bad. Who doesn’t see you as any less when you feel like you are, who still holds you on a pedestal when you feel small. Who doesn’t see your bad days as problems but just little bumps along the road that you can maneuver together — who stands beside you and never lets go.

And the truth is, once she leaves, you’ll even miss the bad things. The fights, the complications, all the little quirks that once drove you crazy. Because you never realize what you have until it’s already walking out the door, and it doesn’t matter how much you beg for it back. Once she’s done, she’s done.

You grew distant. So did I. Sometimes we’d go days without saying anything at all. It felt like there was something hiding in that silence, but I was never able to put my finger on it. I think there are some things I’ll never be able to describe in words.