Even Though I’m Over You, Sometimes I Still Wonder Why We Fell Apart

Sometimes, I find myself rereading our last text messages.

Maybe it’s because I enjoy hurting myself, or maybe it’s because there is still a part of me that has no idea why the hell it happened. And despite the fact that I am completely over you, there is still a part of me that wonders how we fell apart.

One day we were happy, you were telling me that you were ready to tell me you loved me, and a week later we were over. Just like that. It happened so quickly, the deterioration. I blinked and everything was different. You were no longer the guy I had been falling for, you were someone else. Someone I didn’t know.

When we started dating I had so many reservations. You were my first “adult” relationship and I had a lot of hurt in my past. I was terrified to open up and let you in, and yet I did it. Not only did I do, I did it quickly. Every step of our relationship was quick, from the first minute right up until the last minute. I was so scared that you would hurt me that I didn’t want to let my walls down. But you told me I could trust you, and foolishly I believed you.

I can only blame myself for that. But you see, how was I supposed to know that you would do exactly what I was worried about. Not only did you reject me, you threw my past in my face. You begged me to open up and then you used that against me when I was at my weakest. I will never be able to understand that.

Maybe that’s why I go back to the messages sometimes.

I don’t hate you anymore, I’m not even mad. I’ve completely moved on. I’m happy now. But there is still a piece of me that wonders. I don’t wonder because I miss you or want you back. I think I wonder because if I don’t know why it happened, how can I make sure it doesn’t happen again? See, I’m in a good relationship now, and while I know he would never intentionally hurt me the way you did, I’m still scared.

The week leading to our breakup was a roller coaster. I didn’t know where we stood. All of a sudden you were backing off and I didn’t understand where it was coming from. I didn’t know if we were okay, and you weren’t giving me clear signals. You were still playing your games.

We decided to meet up to talk. I remember how nervous I was going into that conversation. I had no idea what I was walking into. Was it going to be a good conversation, a break up? I had no idea and I was terrified.

As soon as I saw you I knew things weren’t right. You could barely look at me. We decided to walk to the park and talk. We didn’t talk on the way there. There was nothing to say, or maybe there was too much to say.

I made you talk first. I wasn’t going to make this easy for you. If you wanted to break up you were going to have to say it. You started telling me about your concerns and honestly I was shocked. It felt like someone had knocked the air out of me. You were throwing all these things at me, it felt as if they were coming from left field. You told me you had been feeling some of these things for weeks.

You had been lying to me about how you felt for weeks trying to convince yourself for weeks that this relationship was the right thing for you. Meanwhile, you had been leading me on like you had no concerns. Talking about a future and what that would look like. I just sat there crying as my world shattered around me. I couldn’t trust you anymore, you had lied to me about the things that mattered most. How could I believe anything you were saying? Everything you said sounded like excuses.

As we left that night you asked for a hug. I wanted to believe that being in your arms again would fix everything. But everything about the hug felt wrong. I stood there crying in your arms, but you no longer felt safe. I just wanted it to end. I wished more than anything that I was anywhere else in the world at that moment. But no matter how hard I wished, it wasn’t changing, that was my reality.

We walked away that night and I went home crying. I was broken. I was so hurt that I no longer knew what I was feeling. I cried myself to sleep. I just wanted to erase what had happened, but the damage had been done. I think that when I walked away from you that night deep down I knew it was the end, even if we didn’t officially end it until the next night. Because there is no coming back from that.

In those moments where I let myself revisit the past and try to figure it out, I run through these events that occurred trying to decipher them. But there is no point, because I will never understand what was going through your mind. I will never understand how you could have been faking your feelings for weeks, before you finally got up the courage to tell me. I’ll never understand how you could be selfish enough to not consider the consequences your actions would have on me. So I’m done trying to make sense of what you did. I will never be able to understand it, because I could never do that to someone.