I’m Strong Enough Now To Refuse To Accept Just A ‘Maybe’ From You

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I promise you, you made me happy once. Sublimely, without doubt, and by all means happy.

You were just a guy, like a hundred thousand other guys. But in a short amount of time, you made me feel feelings I’d never felt before, think thoughts I’d never thought of before, smile like I’d never smiled in my life – and for that, you became absolutely unique. For that, you were able to capture my heart, and everything that came with it.

But, like any great and untimely and fleeting young love, the affection you once showed left as quickly as it came.

It was painful and I had to watch it till the very end.

I had to watch how things were changing between us, how your responses got shorter and shorter each time I tried to make a conversation with you, how you couldn’t open up to me like you used to anymore, how you started going out with girls that were not me.

I had to watch you turn your emotions off for me, how you were deep and kind one moment – almost making me feel like you wanted me as much as I wanted you – but then, because sweet words and sprinting heartbeats doesn’t always end up in forever, you turned back to your ice-cold self and stopped talking to me, leaving me confused as to what I had done wrong again.

I had to watch myself be unable to tell you all the things I’d always been dying to say, unable to ask the questions that seemed to keep me up all night. Because I chose to be silent, in fear of being too honest and scaring you away.

Maybe from the very start, we knew it all along. Maybe we knew that what we were and what we would ever be was friends and nothing more.

But it still hurt to see you leave without hesitation. It hurt when you left me with no explanation and with only my own manic thoughts about what ever happened between us. It hurt to think that maybe, maybe if I had told you what I truly felt, said the things I’d been wishing to say and asked all the questions that kept me up all night then maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t have left, after all.

But now, when I think about it, it wouldn’t have mattered to you anyway. If you didn’t feel it before, then maybe you were destined to not feel it ever, at all.

Maybe this is just how the universe wants it to work between us, or maybe one day we’ll meet again, when all is right, and maybe we’ll give what we had another chance. Maybe this is just a cliff-hanger that will pave the way for something more, something greater and better. Or maybe we’ll really just end up as strangers that share never-to-be-spoken memories and brief smiles every once in a while.

But those are just maybes, and all we have now is now. And right now, I’m choosing to say goodbye to you. Even though you are now the one that got away, I want you to know that I wouldn’t have wished it any other way. I’m glad for all the late night conversations and all the smiles you gave to me. I’m glad that I met you and made you happy, even for just a short while.

I promise you, you made me happy. Sublimely, without doubt, and by all means happy. But after everything that’s happened, I’m glad that we are where we’re supposed to be now: away from each other.