She hates that you didn’t put in half as much effort as she did, even though she handed you a million chances. She hates that you strung her along for so many months before deciding she wasn’t what you wanted. She hates that you shattered her heart without sticking around to sweep up the pieces.

And, because she hates everything that you’ve done, everything that you stand for, she claims to hate you, too.

But she doesn’t. She never could. Because she’s still in love with you.

It’s not that she wants you back in her life. She knows that would be a horrible idea. That you’d toxify her air. But she wishes you could erase the past. Repaint it. Stop yourself from ever hurting her. Because, once, everything seemed so perfect. You seemed perfect.

But now, she sees the truth. She knows you’re wrong for her. That’s why she wants to hate you. She tries hard to convince herself that she wants nothing to do with you. That she’s officially over you and all of your bullshit.

She acts like you disgust her. When she hears your name, she rolls her eyes. When she sees your photo, she clicks onto a new page. And when one of her friends asks about you, she changes the conversation after mentioning how she doesn’t care about you anymore, how she hasn’t even thought about you.

She claims that she would walk right past you — or maybe stop briefly to curse you out — if she ever ran into you again.

But deep down, she knows that’s a lie. Secretly, she looks for your face wherever she goes. And if she saw you, she’d have the urge to run over to you. To kiss you. To ask you why you did what you did.

Because she doesn’t hate you. Not at all. She hates the situation. She hates the way things ended. Most of all, she hates that she still cares, even though she swears that she doesn’t.

But don’t take her leftover love as a sign to contact her. To try to set things right when they’ve already gone horribly wrong.

If you love her as much as she loves you, then you have to stay away from her. It doesn’t matter that her hatred is only an act — because she’s pretending for a good reason. She’s pretending, because she knows she deserves more than what you’re willing to give her. Because she’s ready to hold out for something real.

So don’t text her. Don’t add her back on Facebook. Don’t show up at her front door with flowers. Don’t tempt her to settle again — because if you asked her to, she would seriously consider it.

But you already had your chance and you screwed it up. You fucked her up.

So don’t reach out to her if you haven’t changed, if you aren’t willing to make an effort to be the man she’s earned. Just let her go. Let her find someone that will treat her the way you should have.