To The Boy Who Never Actually Loved Me

By

I suppose I should start by saying thank you. You were my best friend. The person I could turn to for anything. You were my shelter in a hail storm of anxiety. A safe place when I felt like the world around me was crumbling.

For almost two months I shut down, I took advantage of you, I used you to keep me together during a personal low point and I thank you for standing by me. I thought I loved you before that time, but after that, I knew.

I loved you. Every ounce of me loved you, but you weren’t ready for the love I had to give. I wasn’t patient enough for you to figure out the lessons you needed to learn for yourself, and for that I am sorry.

I’m sorry I made you choose and I’m sorry I almost forced you into a life you wouldn’t have been happy with. You deserve more than that, and so do I.

I wish we were different, I wish our plans fit together as well as our bodies did.

But you forgot to include me in the process of living out your future. I was a choice. One that for you, meant giving up your dreams. I wish I could have been a part of those dreams, something more to you than the end of your sovereignty.

I would have followed you to London, but you never asked. I would have been a willing travel companion to South America, but you never invited me. There is a nobility and a bravery to solitude. A peacefulness and an adventure, but there is loneliness, a deep and dark loneliness, one that leaves you looking to the past for light. I hope you never experience that.

I hope one day you really do fall in love. The gut wrenching type of love that makes it hard to breathe. The type of love that consumes your thoughts of the future and alters your dreams.

You were my dream, for however brief it may have been. You were the boy at the end of the aisle. The boy I’d spend the rest of my life eating pizza with. We’d argue over silly things like how I still can’t do the dishes and why on earth I brought home another dog.

We’d travel, see things together for the first time. We’d buy a house and fill it with memories from our adventures. We’d laugh at our friends for starting families and giving up their freedom to some needy child, even though we secretly thought about it ourselves. We’d annoy each other, we’d fight, but we would be in love and that would be enough.

I’ll end with saying thank you again. This time for leaving me.

Geographically I left you. I know I made that choice and I know that choice was the beginning to our end. But you left me when I needed you most and now, I’d like to thank you for that.

I needed you there when my dad died. My world shattered into a thousand pieces and I needed my best friend. I was empty, a void of nothingness, and I was alone. I needed to feel you. I needed your arms to hold me and bring me back to my shattered reality.

I hoped so desperately that I’d turn around at any point and you’d be there… but you weren’t. You were harder to get a hold of, your texts seemed empty and delivered simply out of courtesy.

The boy that I saw at the end of the aisle was gone and in his place was the shadow of a boy I used to love. You forced me to move on. I no longer had justification to hold on to you. You were no longer my boyfriend and in those weeks after my father’s death you made that very clear. I hated you for that. I wanted you to step up, show up, but you didn’t.

Slowly and painfully I realized that it was no longer your responsibility. You didn’t owe me anything and the phone calls and texts were in fact kindness to old friend in need. You weren’t my boyfriend and it was unfair of me to expect you to act like one… again for that I am sorry.

You were the first boy I loved, and as much as it pains me you will permanently have a piece of my heart.