He Chose To Leave And He Doesn’t Get To Come Back

He got to fall in love. I got laid. And often. All the time actually if I wanted it. It was easy to go out and meet someone for something that wasn’t important. It was easy to find someone to spend fleeting moments with. It was easy to be with someone else in between cold sheets that once felt so warm with him. But he was in love now and I knew it wasn’t with me.

He walked away without a second thought. I got to think about what happened over and over again. I laid awake at night thinking about what he could be doing. I thought about all of the things we used to do together and wondered if he was doing that with his someone new.  I thought about how what happened between us and how many tears spilled down my cheeks the day he left. He didn’t look back as he shut the door for the last time.

He got off scot-free. I got debt. Emotional debt. Check. Financial debt. Check. Everyone tells you how lucky you are to get out of a relationship that’s sucking your soul but they also forget the expense it’s at. My health. My money. My life. It’s just never going to be the fucking same since him. And he didn’t have to worry about any of that.

He got to sober up. I got drunk. Really fucking drunk. Like so drunk I could barely stand. I’d giggle to myself. I was having all the fun all of the time on my own. I didn’t need him. I didn’t need anyone. That is until the hangover set in. Then I was just left with pain in my head and my heart. He didn’t wake up with a headache from the night before because he was trying to drown me out.

He got our old neighborhood. I got a new place. I packed my shit. Suddenly those walls that I used to love around us were causing my breathing to constrict. Those four walls made it so I couldn’t sleep or eat or function like a normal human being. So, I moved. I got acquainted with new streets and a new local pub. He got the comforts of home, our home, the one that’s no longer mine.

He got to avoid feelings. I got pity from everyone I know. Everyone knew how much I loved him. They knew how much I invested in him. They knew everything I did for him and how I’d drop everything to be there. It was embarrassing for them to know all that and to know then how he left. They gave me sad looks and told me I’d be better off. While they’re right, it still didn’t make it any easier. He got to go on living nothing had ever happened and no one had to give him any sympathy.

He got to let me go. I got to miss him deeply. I sent texts to my friends telling them how much I miss him. How much I craved to have him next to me again. I could never bring myself to dial his number to tell him but I know he knew. He knew how badly he shattered me when he left and he knew that he couldn’t come back. He knew when he left that he set fire to everything we had built and there was no going back. He got to let me go and pretend I didn’t exist in his reality anymore.

He found how hard being without me is. I got to be set free. Still, even though he knew couldn’t text me, it didn’t stop him a few months later. It didn’t stop him from telling me all of the words I wanted to hear back then and the words that just infuriated me now. He realized what he had and that he had lost it so now he was desperately trying to get it back.

But me? I was set free the second he left and there was no way in hell I was going back there again.