When I Lied And Said ‘It Gets Better’

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A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who was going through a rough patch asked me, “Do you still think about him?”

But that wasn’t the question that I found hard to answer. It was when I saw these four words on my computer screen that I froze…

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“Does it get better?”

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I wanted to tell her that I’ve stood where she once stood three years ago. I wanted to tell her how I sat huddled on the bathroom floor, trying to muffle my sobs till I could hardly breathe the night he told me “We can’t be together”. I wanted to tell her how I ripped my heart open; piece by piece everyday as I chose to work part time at the café he always went to, hoping he’d turn up someday. I wanted to tell her about the nightmares I feared and yet looked forward to as it was the only way I could feel that he had never left me. I wanted to tell her about the mornings when I didn’t even feel like getting out of bed and all I did was listen to those lousy sad songs that sold all my feelings. I wanted to tell her about that evening when I found courage to remove his photos from my gallery and how I curled up in my closet to cry for hours after that. I wanted to remind her of how I shut the world including her out of my life because no one ever made me feel better. I wanted to tell her that despite all these, things will get better.

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But… 

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How could I?

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How could I when I still can’t bear listening to the songs that he loves. How could I when people who share his name inevitably causes me to wonder how he is doing. How could I when even after all these years, I still run right back into the past searching for an an answer that couldn’t be found. How could I tell her that getting better isn’t really much better because your heart can never forget these memories. How can I tell her about that fine line between love and care? How?

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How could I tell her that?

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As my fingers hovered over the keyboard… I held my breath as I typed…

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“Trust me, things will get better.”

I am such a hypocrite