An Open Letter To A Guy Who Will Never See It

It’s well past Thanksgiving and you didn’t call. You don’t want to meet me. Officially and irrevocably, you chose to never meet me. Even though writing those words literally made my heart hurt, I know it’s for the best. Because when you sent me that message asking if we could talk about it the next day… when I thought for a second that us meeting might actually happen…I felt dread. That’s right, dread. I thought “Do I really want this? What was I thinking? I don’t think I want this.”

Isn’t that how it always goes with us humans? We want something so desperately bad until we can have it, and then suddenly we don’t want it anymore. I think that’s what happened with you, too. I think that’s why you finally deleted me on Snapchat, the last piece of my life you held on to. You kept me as a friend because you could still see my stories, you could still know if I was doing okay without you. But you finally let go because once you realized you had the choice, you were able to see what you would choose.

I miss you like crazy. I wish we could’ve worked out. I wish we could’ve ended up being that amazing couple with the insane love story that defied all odds and blew everyone’s minds. It won’t happen, that’s a definite, but that doesn’t mean I can stop myself from hoping for it every once in a while.

What we had was so unique and real. How the hell we talked for so many hours about who knows what for so many nights… I still don’t know how we did it. That’s the thing when you’re in love, though. Time doesn’t work the same. Eight hours can feel like just one. And it did, for so, so many nights. For so many nights the sun would come up too soon, and we’d have to get some sleep before our parents expected us to be up for the day.

That night when you said “As far as I’m concerned, I’m yours.” I cried. A lot. I thought I was doing the right thing by staying strong, by turning you down, but now I’m not so sure. Because now what’s become of us? I’m a depressed and lonely girl who spends her weekdays working a crazy amount of hours and spends her weekends laying in bed killing her brain cells with sitcoms. And you? I’m sorry bud, but I hate what’s happened to you. You’re all the things you used to hate. You drink, you do drugs, you sleep around… it’s awful and honestly I’m embarrassed both for you and of you. But I’m embarrassed for and of myself, too, so where does that leave us?

I’ll always love you. I’ll always care about you and want you to be happy. And I swear if you called me now and said you needed me I’d be on the first flight out of this town on my way to you because that’s what love means, and I’ll mean it forever. But this useless waiting around, daydreaming about you changing your mind and changing who you’ve become? This thinking we’re both still 16 and invincible and that we’ll get married and have two kids named Oliver and Annie and have a puppy and a pool with a slide from our room and we’ll live happily ever after? It has to stop. I refuse to be the girl that let her loss of love break her. I refuse to be the girl who lets being alone equal being lonely. I refuse to keep chasing the guy who doesn’t love me, and maybe hasn’t for at least a year now. Gosh, I can’t believe how long we haven’t been together and how I still can’t let it go. If this were a movie, I’d hate me. Sometimes, even though it’s real life, I still do.

But it’s over now. I have to let you go. You’re not who you used to be and frankly, neither am I. Thank you for who you were, and what you did for me when you were him. I hope this new you figures out what life is really about and ends up making the most of it. I hope he ends up happy and never lonely. I hope I do too.