This Is What It’s Like To Watch Your Ex Move On
We broke up in a 7Eleven parking lot on Christmas.
“I’m sorry.”
The last thing he said before getting into his Silver F150 and driving away.
I guess I saw our break up more as a product of him being away.
He was in his first year of a military college in a small Virginia town and I was finishing up high school.
Yes, we had our more specific reasons, but in my world all of those reasons emanated from one thing: him being away.
I blamed distance for the empty holes he poked through my heart.
I blamed distance for making him stop loving me.
And now he has someone else.
But seeing pictures of them fosters an unfamiliar feeling in me.
It is not jealousy.
It is not hatred or resentment.
It is not sadness.
It is disappointment.
I am disappointed in myself for believing that you could make someone fall back in love with you.
I am disappointed in him:
in the fact that it only took him two months to find someone else,
in the fact that it only took him three months after meeting her to say he loved her.
Sometimes I feel like those “I love you”s still belong to me.
I am disappointed in what used to be us:
in the fact that we thought we were immune to time,
in the fact that we thought we were immune to distance.
I am disappointed in our past together, NOT our separate future.
He and I are walking on parallel lines towards opposite infinities.
Our paths may have intersected once, but our equations changed along the way.
One day, we will both find someone walking on our same line, towards our same infinity.
And maybe then I will be able to say
“I forgive you.”