How Do You Say Goodbye To Someone You’ve Barely Even Said ‘Hello’ To?

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Ours was a whirlwind romance. Here one moment, gone the next. Short-lived. Fleeting. An infinitesimal blink compared to the days I’ve spent wondering why everything went to hell in a basket of regret, longing, and heartache.

I wasn’t looking for anything when I met you. I was content with my life. Maybe not happy, but I’ve sort of come to terms with the lack of any romantic connection. Then you come breezing into that fateful room that fateful morning. Your gait and stance as confident as any player. Your smile, just as disarming. You were bad news. And I was a sucker for the worst of them. That, I knew for certain. But even feeling it in my gut, it seemed as though I could not stay away. You turned my world upside and we haven’t even spoken a word to each other yet.

I tried to stay away knowing that getting caught in your gravity would be the end of me. Or the end of whatever stasis my life has gone into. I tried. I really did. But like everything else in my life, trouble just won’t stay away. In this case, it all started and ended with you.

I could not stay away. And neither could you, it seemed. You were the first one who made a move. And the silly, little girl in me, who still dreamt of Prince Charming and fairy tale endings, thought that what we’ve put into motion is nothing like I’ve ever had with anyone else before. It wasn’t. But not for the same reasons as that naïve girl’s.

What we had was sordid and void of any real emotional connection that every fiber in my being craved for. Not once did I ever see myself in this kind of non-relationship. But there I was. Floundering and struggling to keep myself afloat and not sink deeper into the romantic illusion I’ve made up all on my own.

I can’t blame you, though. You’ve set the boundaries right from the very beginning. “No expectations. Just fun,” you said. And again, naiveté got the best of me yet again. I agreed to your terms, wrongfully thinking that I’d be able to change your mind. I overestimated your capacity to feel anything for me beyond the ardor that fueled our every encounter. And I, I underestimated my need for you in more than just the physical aspect of our non-relationship.

I’ve built up an image of you in my head. But I guess that was all it had been. An image, a mirage that in no way reflected the reality of you. I feel like I’ve bared every piece of myself to you. Vulnerable, I laid my heart at your feet and you didn’t even know. I never told you. I never tried. I already knew what you would have said, what you would have done. You’d be gone in an instant and any chance I had of salvaging anything from this emotional wreck would have been dust in the wind.

Quick and hard, I’ve fallen and I’m desperately trying to crawl out of the hole I dug and jumped into. I thought you’d jump, too, but you stood a good distance away from the precipice. I guess my mistake was in not looking back to see whether you’d follow.

For every leverage I get, the farther you slip away. I’m afraid that I’ll never get out of this hole. And you, you’d already be a world away with the failed story of us, if there was even an us in the first place, a mere memory you can brush off and forget.

And now, we don’t see each other. We don’t talk. And if that isn’t a glaring indication of how little you care about whatever we had, I don’t know what is.

I want to end this non-relationship. Not to give you the out that you want, but to give myself the chance to take back whatever control I have left. To know that it’s alright to feel the way I do… but to move on from this, I have to take the first step and cut whatever ties are left between me and you. As painful as it is for me to say goodbye, I know it would only be to easy for you to go. This time, I have to save myself.

You walked away and never looked back. It’s time for me to do the same.

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