If you really want to know...

*Don't read this if you don't want to know how I really feel. But there it is. I hope he's happy.

Dear A,

Hanging up on you was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I get queasy just thinking about it, but you left me no choice.

I still don't understand what happened.

You know you could have salvaged a friendship. I still don't know why you didn't talk to me the moment you started to feel differently. That was completely unfair. Instead, I got to feel like crap for a month only to have you come out and refuse to talk to me that night. You refused even though I said I wouldn't be able to enjoy the evening knowing we had something to discuss. Then I slept in the same bed as you, just thinking of the fight we were going to have. I thought it would be a fight, maybe not a pretty one, but I had confidence we could work it out. However, the way you acted made me think it was worse. Boy was I right.You should not have come out here. Why play a good guy when you're not behaving like one?

It's not fair that you invaded my space to tell me you wanted to break up. Now I'm stuck living in the same space where you smashed my world. It sickens me to sit in the same spot. I've had to get rid of half the room to make it feel different, but I know it's not. Then you left me to go have lunch with your friend, which you had said you wouldn't do. You got to escape and leave me alone to try to figure out what happened.

First you told me that you thought you were better off alone, followed by saying I never seemed happy. I don't know where you got that idea. I'm a generally happy person. I love living here, I have great friends, and I'm busy figuring out what I want to do with my life. The thing is, I always wanted to share my happiness with you. You're the person I wanted to tell when something good happened, and you were the person I talked to when I felt angry or down or frustrated. And even though I love it here, I wanted to be with you, so I was willing to go where you needed to be. That wouldn't have been a sacrifice at all. Now I feel like I should have moved with you to Atlanta because then maybe you'd have remembered that you liked having me around.

Then you said you thought you needed time to be alone and that you wanted to move by yourself after you graduate. I wondered if you'd need to do that. I needed to do that, and when I asked you, you said no and that it didn't make a difference to you. And I believed it. Then you said you'd go on break, but you didn't plan to change anything, did you? You said as friends you'd probably call more and visit and not feel guilty so much when you talked to me. That was completely unfair. Any guilt you had you built up on your own. Instead of trying to work it out, you just let guilt pile up and maybe you began to resent me. I guess I'll never know. You said you weren't ready for the "next step" or marriage or anything like that and that you didn't believe in marriage. I never asked you for that. It was you who told me that you wanted to get engaged after you were done with school. That was when you were happy, but I believed you and I had no reason to think otherwise since you never told me otherwise. You also said you thought we were meant to be together and that you believed in fate. I don't believe in fate, but I liked that you felt that way about me. But fate is just an excuse. When things don't work out, you can blame it on "it wasn't meant to be."

You told me you refuse to end up like your dad, and I admired that. You said you wanted to have a good life and get married and have kids so you could be a good father to them. Now you've completely reversed what you wanted, and now you will be just like him. You make poor decisions based on being in one of your "funks" and hurt those who supported you in your highs and lows. How is pushing away someone who genuinely cares for your goals and interests good?

I put more trust in you than I ever have in anyone, ever. Every time you didn't visit or didn't call and talk to me, I trusted that you were busy with school. I understood that you didn't like the phone, and I didn't need to talk to you every day. It took me ten months to get you to call me once a week, and I was so happy that you had listened and made an effort to make me feel like I existed in your sphere. How am I going to ever trust someone again now? Now that the one person I trusted 100% has given up on me, what am I supposed to do with that? I feel like you've used your unhappiness against me. I thought I was something good in your life, but it turns out I was the expendable thing. And since you didn't have the courtesy to talk to me and tell me how you were feeling the moment things changed for you, you ruined our friendship too. I lost my best friend, my boyfriend, and someone I had considered to be family, someone I would have done absolutely anything for within a few minutes. How do you think I feel knowing that you would rather have me not in your life at all than have me as your girlfriend, partner, friend, family, etc? I'll tell you: I feel worthless. I feel expendable and used. I feel like a complete idiot. Here I was believing in what you said, even when your actions said otherwise. Everything I thought was true, based on what you said to me over the past two years, is not so. And I built up my faith in you based on what you said, and since you never told me anything else, I trusted that you still had the same thoughts.

The worst part is that I really liked who I was when I moved here and who I was with you. And now I'm not that person anymore. I'm more of a shell of that person and it's scary to think that I'll never be that person again, and I'm not sure I want to be because that person got her heart broken. I'm not better for this in any way. I'm not happier, or freer, or more tenacious, or stronger, or anything really. Just overwhelmingly sad.

And I like being alone. I understand the need and enjoyment of that. But you were the only person that I found I'd rather share space with than be alone. It sucks to be alone when you know there's someone out there you'd rather be not alone with. 

I sent you this box of things that remind me of you. I didn't have the heart to throw them out, but I can't bear having them near me. I hope you don't throw it all out. Anything I couldn't ship, I had to get rid of. I kept a few small things with the hope of one day being able to look at them and not be sad, but I really don't know if that will ever happen. I've kept that heart necklace you gave me, the one you thought I didn't like. It's not my style, but every time I wore it, I thought of you, and that made me love it. I wore it for months at a time.

I don't even know the truth. You told me so many different things and finally told me you didn't think you loved me anymore, but I don't know if you said that because you knew it would make me give up or if you said it because that's what you felt all along. I don't know anything, so I get to deal with this having no idea what you really think.

If you want to someday be friends, it will have to come from your end. I had to delete you from my email, phone, and facebook to keep myself from calling or writing to you or checking up on you. Like I told you, I know that you will one day figure yourself out and realize that you are not a miserable person and you will be the guy I know you are for someone else. I can't be the one asking you for friendship because I've already begged you enough and it's not fair for me to always hope that you will change your mind. I hope you do reach out and try to be friends with me, but I have the feeling you won't, which makes me feel even worse.

I wish I'd never met you, or at least that we'd only become friends. I think we could have been lifelong friends. You should never have trusted that your "high" in Boulder was going to stick or that another "low" wouldn't change everything you did and said. You knew how you were and still pursued me. Was it worth it? Nothing is worth the way I've felt for the past month. I don't want to be me anymore or have anything to do with the life I've created here. I can't even visit my family and friends in GA for a reprieve because I know you're nearby. It's not fair that you don't have to see me right now or hear anything about how I'm a complete mess. I don't sleep, I don't eat much, and I can't even enjoy my alone time because all I do is think about this. I am completely lost.

None of this has to do with me needing you. I never needed you. I was never dependent on you, but I could depend on you. I chose you. The fact is, I wanted you in my life.  I wanted to be there for you and have you be there for me. I wanted to give you space when you needed it and support when you needed it. I just wanted you. And now you don't want me, and I still don't understand why. I am sick just thinking of you waking up one morning and deciding you're better off alone. How can you be better off alone than with me?

One day I will hopefully be able to think about this and not get upset, but I think instead I will be trying to block it out because it will always make me sad. It will always hurt. Maybe I'll end up with someone else, but I'll always think that I'd rather it be you.

Every time someone asks about you I have to say it again. That YOU broke up with ME. That I had no say in the matter. That I don't even really know the truth because you kept changing your story. After over two years, you owed me an effort to try to work things out. At the very least you owed me the full truth. You barely said anything. You just let it happen and didn't blink an eye. And no one on your end will give you crap because you don't let anybody in. So soon I'll be a just that girl you dated for a bit, if that even. Whereas to me, you'll always be the one who made me feel worse than I ever thought imaginable. Yet, I still love you. And I miss you. I miss talking to you, watching movies with you, making fun of things with you,hugging you, cooking for you, telling you the good things that have happened and ideas I have, and everything...

Now I'm just a wreck. Not because I don't have you. Because you hurt me in the worst way possible, and I will never know what went through your head. I don't want any part of the last three years of my life now. All of it makes me sick to think about. It's all ruined. I am ruined. I hope it's not permanent, but even so, I know it will last a lifetime.

-E