What's Left of Me After You

Numb. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately, and there isn’t a more perfect word for it. Mug in hand and armed with my next 500-page escape into some new fantasy realm, I settle into my favorite chair, desperate to start reading before my thoughts take over. My fingers lightly flip open the cover.

Bzzz. I jump. A notification? My phone is usually so quiet these days.

—Hey, I know it’s been a while.

A message from him. My ex. My “lover.” I flip the phone over and turn the ringer off.

“I’m much happier without him,” I tell the bookshelves on my wall. My fingers flip the cover again, this time with more force. The table of contents is next in the lineup of pages before I can jump out of reality, but I can’t seem to focus. Repressed thoughts start to simmer in my burnt-out mind, the memories unrelentingly bubbling into my imagination, rigorously tempting me to relive them before they fade away in time. Daydreams have a stigma for being happy, light and carefree, but I have never experienced such a daydream. Mine brings tears to my eyes and swelling to my throat. My daydreams consist of what has been, what could have been, and what never will be again.

The dance. The first time we ever danced. Junior prom- wasn't it? Four years ago and counting. His hair, much too messy and lengthy, but his eyes looking into mine were enough to distract me from just about anything, even if everyone around us was staring.

His smile was so rare that if you looked away for even an instant, you could miss it. This rarity was reserved for me that night, and my stomach had never done so many flips in the span of mere hours. His face formed the most heart melting smile lines, with cute little points on each cheek, and the way his eyes wrinkled in the outer corners made me wish they were permanent; that we were already an old married couple going to church on Sundays and taking care of our garden in a wonderful old cottage together. Skip college, skip jobs, skip a chaotic life if it means time apart from him, his smile, his laugh.

If I could relive that day; the first time he held my hand, the first time he put his arms around me, the first time his smile was all mine, I would. But with these firsts, there are lasts. With these lasts, there are tears. With these tears, there comes the drowning mania that happens when there is no getting back what is long gone.

Oh no… not again. Eight months. It’s been eight months. Get it together. Breathe.

But breathing doesn’t help. Breathing doesn’t stop the tears hovering dangerously close to falling onto my book. Reluctantly, I get up and sluggishly move across my room to grab my favorite lemon pound cake scented candle. If I can’t calm down on my own, there is nothing better to do than light a candle that smells like dessert.

Although the ringer is turned off on my phone, the vibrations of another incoming message fill my stomach with dread. He has no idea what this breakup has done to me. Time will never be enough to let go, because I was the only one truly in love.

“God, why can’t you just understand?” I groan, snatching my phone.

—I don’t want to get back together, but let’s be friends again.

Let's be friends again.

I think of all the conversations I wrote down, so I’d never forget the moments we had together. I think of every time I marked down what made him happy, what made him sad, what made him squirm. I think of how obsessed I was with making him happy when we dated.

Let’s be friends again?

My mind is aching, aching for him to understand me. How can he not see how much he ruined me, how hard it is to have his presence, his soul in my life when it can’t be mine?

Suddenly, I rush to my laptop, enter my passcode, and punch in his email for a draft that will never be sent.

“A letter, let me write a letter. Yeah, a letter.” My breathing is shallow, and my mind is full. I need to get everything out of my system. I address it “Dear,” and type:

I want to let you know that you will never leave me. I wish I had the courage to tell you that I don't have the courage to be friends with you again because I will always be holding on to that sliver of hope that we will get back together one day. I have never in my life and will never again feel all the things that you made me feel when we were together. You took a part of me when you left, and no matter how selfish and dismissive you were to me, I will never get it back. My darling, you will have that piece forever even if you never look at it again. It will be black and shriveled like our relationship, but my identity is lost with you. I need to find what I love again, who I am again, whatever it was in that piece you stole. I have never loved someone so deeply and so completely that, consequently, I don’t think I ever will again. I miss feeling things.

I miss the poet I used to be when my love was unrequited. I miss the artist I used to be when I drew your eyes. I missed the reader I used to be when every male protagonist was you. I missed the believer I used to be when I thought my love was enough to make you love me back equally.

Maybe I miss you, maybe I miss the way you made me feel. Maybe that’s selfish, but it’s not now because I let you go. I freed you from me, where you never truly wanted to be. I captured you to have just a moment in my lifetime with you, and then I sent you off. Hopefully you’ll treat your future girlfriend, or even wife right, like she was who you really wanted to be with all along.

My last selfish feeling is only this: I hope you fall in love in the same torturous way that I did and finally understand what it means to love someone enough to let them go. I hope you fall so deeply in love that you grab a hold of your heart and offer it whole for her, where she devours all its vulnerabilities, then throws it away. I hope that when she throws it away, chunks of it are missing from where she teased it and tossed it endlessly, throwing you into a whirlwind of confusion. And when she is finally done with it, I hope she jams it back into your chest and says with hauntingly beautiful eyes, “let’s just be friends”.

If this happens to you, think of me and realize this is exactly what I felt like. This was my position when we broke up and it will forever be my position since I will never bring myself to love another person as I loved you. You have left me scarred, my love. I won’t let it happen again.

Always, Your first love

Finally, I blindly press save, close the lid and lay down to sleep, messages unanswered and the scent of lemon pound cake lulling me to sleep.

--

I wake up to a frantic email from him.