The Apology You Never Got But Always Deserved

Hey.

I’ve rewritten this email thousands of times and each time, it sounds…wrong. I’m worried you won’t read past the first line, let alone open it. I don’t blame you if you don’t…it’s been five years now. I tried calling, but I assume you’ve changed your number. You don’t have social media anymore, unless you changed your name? Either way, I thought I’d just try this once. 

You didn’t deserve the way I treated you in the end, and not a second’s gone by that I haven’t thought of you. You were my everything. I was an idiot. I’m sorry I blocked you. You kept calling and texting, and I honestly didn’t know how to handle everything. It doesn’t justify things, but I know now that I should have just answered and talked to you. I should have apologized back then. We’d only been broken up for a week at that point, and each time your name popped up on my phone, guilt ate me from the inside out. I was a coward. Back then, I didn’t know the first thing about being vulnerable. So I blocked you. For that, I’m sorry.

The night we broke up, I should have just listened to you. I was pissed that you wouldn’t hear me out, and when you started yelling and crying, it triggered me because I knew that was when I needed to comfort you…and that’s the last thing I wanted to do when I believed distance would fix our issues. I wasn’t thinking straight. My anger got the best of me. Maybe it was my pride. But I shouldn’t have walked away. I shouldn’t have driven off. I shouldn’t have gotten drunk that night and I especially shouldn’t have kissed that random chick at the bar (I know Devin told you). I thought it’d help you move on if I merely acted like breaking up didn’t faze me. But Ellaina, breaking up will forever be the biggest mistake of my life.

Again, nothing I did was justified. I handled the breakup poorly. But please understand I was immature and stupid. I rushed into our relationship instantly after my last breakup when I should have been alone and healed. I should have waited to be ready for you. That wasn’t your fault. But I just want to clarify that I didn’t break up with you because I didn’t love you and especially not because you were the problem. I never should have said that. I repeat, YOU WERE NEVER THE PROBLEM. I loved you, Ellaina. After all these years, I never stopped. But we were moving too fast and I was a sixteen year old in a twenty-eight year-old’s body. I didn’t see what I had in front of me, and though I always knew I wanted you to be the mother of my children, I selfishly thought you could wait for me to live a few more party years. It felt like I was being controlled, like I was losing my freedom. You kept bringing up moving to California together, having kids in the next year, finding better jobs so we could afford it all. I did want that. Just not then. I wasn’t ready. I needed you to understand that. 

Despite everything, we both can agree our relationship became dangerously toxic, can’t we? For four months, all we did was argue. We slept in separate rooms five out of the seven days a week. We barely made love. And we stopped going on dates at least a year before that. Do you remember that? I called you names you should never call your future wife, you said I made you miss your one-night-stands. We were awful, Ellaina. That’s why I left.

But you didn’t deserve the way I treated you afterwards. 

I should have communicated with you instead of running away and cutting you off. Yes, you tried reaching out. Yes, you apologized in every voicemail you left me. I listened to every single one. I read all the paragraphs you texted me (well, I know you know…because I was an asshole and turned on my read receipts). You did everything you could. I hope the last five years you haven’t been blaming yourself like you always do. It’s my turn to say I’m sorry, if you’ll accept it.

Ellaina, while I wish I could speak this face-to-face, writing will have to do: I’m sorry for the way I treated you in the end. You deserved to marry your childhood best friend (me, lol). You deserved communication. You deserved all the babies in the world, like you always dreamed. You deserved a wedding on the beach, and you deserved forehead kisses and ‘I-love-you’s’ whispered in your ear before you fell asleep. You deserved a partner who loved you unconditionally. You never deserved to fall asleep crying or alone, and you never deserved to question your worth. You deserved a phone call back after we broke up, and if we were always meant to break up, you at least deserved a kiss goodbye. 

You truly deserved better. You became the standard I’ve held every partner afterwards to, which isn’t fair to them because they’ll never be you, no matter how hard they try. You weren’t only my lover, but my best friend. I treated you horribly in the end. And I want you to know I’m so deeply sorry and I’ll be sorry the rest of my life.

It sucks it took me so long to mature and settle down. I realize now that you never would have pressured me into anything. You just wanted to plan and prepare, and as you said, “take it one day at a time with the end goal in mind.” I should have just listened to you and talked through it. Maybe we’d be married by now with a baby or two living on the West Coast by now. 

Anyways, I hope you’re doing okay. If you find it in your heart to forgive me, please give me a call; I’ll leave my number at the end of this email. (Don’t worry, I’m not married and have no baby mommas who’ll threaten your life if they ever find out I emailed you.) Er…to clarify, no baby mommas at all. Or kids. To this day, if it means anything, I’ve held off because I only ever wanted that with you.

God, I'm such an idiot.

Oh, maybe you’ll laugh at this: I’ve been taking therapy the past year. Crazy, huh? The guy who always shit-talked therapy now attends religiously. I have the receipts if you don’t believe me. (Which I really hope you do.) You were right about a lot of things: I needed it more than anyone. And I can never thank you enough for being so patient with me, even though I always said you weren’t. 

You were the most patient anyone’s ever been with me. I never should’ve had a wandering eye and I did have a growing alcohol problem. God, I can’t say it enough: you were right. Again, I’m sorry.

And no, I’m not drunk while typing this. I know in one of your voicemails, you said the day I decided to apologize and reach out, it’d be the day I finally drunk myself into insanity. (While that happened one too many times, it’s not what’s happening here.) No, instead, I type this on Hermosa beach, the beach you wanted to marry on, occasionally looking up in case I catch a glimpse of a beautiful brunette with hazel eyes searching for hermit crabs to rescue. 

Well, today I’m one of those hermits. Except…there’s no brunette to be found. 

I’ll always love you, Ellaina, no matter the outcome. I should have told you all this years ago. If you’re willing, please give me a call. I’d love the chance to hear your voice in real time, not on the voicemails I’ve relistened to the past five years.

Sincerely, 

Sam

When his name first popped up in my email, I merely skimmed the subject line ‘The Apology You Never Got But Always Deserved.’ How dramatic and lengthy. Sam was never good at brevity. Which is why it absolutely devastated me all those years ago when all I got were stone-cold blue eyes the night I begged him not to leave. Not a single word left him. He went from texting me paragraphs and talking my ear off to pressing his lips so tight, I thought someone had glued them shut.

I exhale heavily and look up from my laptop screen. Sun beams through the window and dust specks dance as though they’re in a symphony. Somewhere outside, music thrums down the sidewalk, likely someone biking past with a speaker on their shoulder. Oh, Sam. Why couldn’t you just speak to me that night? 

He wasn’t wrong. I’m now living on the beach. Can see it through my window, in fact. Sapphire blue waves sparkle in the distance and tiny figures surf along them. What did he expect? That I’d stay in plain ol’ Utah until he finally reached out? 

Still, something churns in my stomach. Never did I think after all these years, his words would still cut the space between my breasts and leave this…this…void, devastation, pain…anger. Why does it even affect me now? 

I lean back into the soft cushions of my sofa and chew my nail. My eyes roam the white walls and hanging plants, all the paintings I poured my aching heart into and hung on the wall to document my healing. Butterflies, moths with burning wings, wilted flowers, shells of hermit crabs on the shore. In the corner of my studio apartment, a terrarium of hermit crabs. My sleeping Terrier in a pool of sunlight on the golden wood floors. 

Once upon a time, this was our dream. It was always supposed to be my best friend since middle school and I, living along the beach pursuing our dreams.

Except…you’re too late, Sam, I type in reply to his email. I’m not anywhere near Hermosa Beach, in fact: I’m by one of the beaches in Thailand, because I never wanted any memories of the life we once wanted. And while I called and texted for months despite my messages turning green because they could never be delivered, it only took a year for me to change my number. A year to spiral. That year, I fucked your best friend, Sam, and you’ll never know because he promised he’d never tell. You screwed him over too, don’t forget that the girl you kissed at the bar just happened to be a girl he was talking to for months…and you knew that. You deserved nothing, not even forgiveness. And I did what I did so the day you decided to apologize, I couldn’t take you back even if I wanted to. Because there’d be too much damage. We truly would become irreparable. We became toxic, Sam; that much, we can agree on.

Also, I’m married now. I married a nice man who gave me a tour of Thailand when I moved here three years ago. He may not be someone I grew up with, he may not be the person who took my virginity, but he’s the person who loved me during my darkest hour and never once made me feel like a burden. He thought my dreams were beautiful. He helped me make them a reality.

I rub my bulging stomach and pat it once…twice. I’m carrying his baby, Sam, I type. But now the words blur and a tear slips down my cheek. I bite my lip. How many dreams have I had in recent weeks about this baby turning out to be Sam’s? How many times has he crossed my mind? Only when my husband and I bicker, despite its rarity. 

“Sam, I still love you, too,” I say, but don’t type. “Why couldn’t you write me sooner?” 

I press ‘discard’ and my email disappears. And then I hover my mouse over the ‘delete’ option on his email. I click it. It disappears. 

I do believe in soulmates. Sam was mine. After all these years, I don’t doubt he believes I was his. Maybe it took him a little longer to realize, but even when he blocked my calls and ignored my texts, I always felt in my gut he still loved me. It all ended over an explosive argument that could’ve been resolved had we not already been arguing for months on end, had we not been burnt out by our heightened emotions. Maybe things would’ve turned out different had we just taken a break when Sam first mentioned it, four months before it all ended. In that, I’m also at fault. 

Now, we’ll never know what we could have been. And it’s too late. 

Sam, I forgive you. I hope you forgive me, too. 

Maybe it’s time we forget.