To The Guy I Wanted To Hate, I Forgive You

Your name lit up my phone. But it wasn’t what I thought you would say.

You didn’t apologize for never responding to anything I had sent you or tell me why you did what you did.

You asked me what I was doing in your neighborhood like I didn’t have any right to be there.

I didn’t want to tell you why I was there or who I was with because you lost the right to know those things about me a long time ago.

After staring at your message for a day I started thinking about ways to tell you off. But in the end, I couldn’t do it.

I could have told you about the guy beginning to replace you.

But I wanted to see you.

I wanted to tell you in person because you still mattered to me.

I wanted to sit in front of you and tell you that I still think you’re a good person, but I had moved on. That after trying to fix things, maybe getting back together, but then you ghosting me, you weren’t the person who I thought of all day and night anymore. At least not in the same way.

Somewhere between you being too busy for me and ignoring me, I had found someone else.

I stared at your message asking myself if I was ready to do this, and the answer was yes.

I was finally ready to let you have it.

But then once I saw you, I couldn’t. You weren’t the person I knew anymore.

Instead of being the angry and frustrated person I thought you were, you gave me the biggest hug and asked how I was doing. I had come with full guns blazing ready to strike at any minute so I was confused.

Where was the guy who made me cry myself to sleep so many times?

Then you walked me to a restaurant, held the door open for me, and asked for a table by the window. Instead of having awkward conversations, we talked about your family, how your friends were doing, my new job, and what had happened over the last year.

I was still thinking that this was just the calm before the angry storm, but it didn’t happen.

We kept talking about so many things, and for once, I actually listened to you in a way I had never been able to before. The more you talked, the more I realized you had been dealing with just as much as me. You just didn’t know how to tell me what was going on, or you probably didn’t think I’d care.

When I finally told you I had found someone new, I didn’t feel proud and powerful like I thought I would. I actually felt terrible.

You asked me where I had met him, how old he was, what he did for work and where he lived. You were happy for me, even though I could tell that it stung.

And in that moment, I knew everything we had put each other through didn’t matter as much anymore. I could finally forgive you for all the stupid things we had done because I knew you aren’t the monster who was out to get me.

Instead, you were one of the best guys I’ve ever known.