Everything You Put Me Through

We fell apart so slow.

And maybe it didn't feel slow. Maybe it all came shockingly fast, hitting me one day when I was sitting alone because it hurt to think about you, maybe that's when it happened.

I watched you slipping through the cracks. I wanted to believe that I was slipping with you, that we were just moving forward, that we were falling apart because we had to break to put ourselves back together, but I was simply wrong.

You were slipping away and I watched.

Or maybe I was the one slipping and you had never changed. I was just realizing.

I wanted to believe so badly that you weren’t the problem, because you always made me feel like it was my fault. It should have been a red flag, but it was just a sign I didn’t listen to. So we kept falling, and falling, and you didn’t even try to catch us.

You didn’t want us to figure it out. You wanted us to fall apart because it would be so much easier to let me leave you than to admit that you were the problem.

But I still can’t hate you.

I hate everything about us- the smoke we were walking through from the moment you wanted me for less than me, the way you looked at me like I was some sort of prize, the way you promised to love me and then hurt me like you didn’t mean it.

But I can’t hate you. Because you held me and you let me cry on your shoulder, you loved me and I was so desperate for love that you quenched my thirst. My angry, anguished desire for someone to care.

You loved me with the worst intentions, and I could only sit and watch because I was convinced I needed you.

For just a brief moment, while I watched you smile and held your hand like it was a lifeline (because it was, you were all I held onto and if you let go I’d simply fall and fall and fall-), you tasted like honey and I needed you. I hung on so tight because I needed you. And you took that for granted because somehow you couldn’t see how much you meant to me.

You hated who I was and pretended you didn’t, because you wanted to reap my benefits.

And I loved you despite everything I pretended not to know you were.

You swept me off my feet and I let you, because I was drowning and you were going to save me. You were going to love me and paint us a happy ending, but you couldn’t.

Or didn’t.

I don’t know which is worse anymore.

So I sit on my floor and cry, because I loved you (still do, somehow), and I have to say goodbye to someone I should hate but can’t. I have to grieve for someone living. For someone who tore me apart but I would still fall into the arms of if given the chance.

I have to let you go;

But I don’t know if I can villainize someone I used to think was safe.

You were Ethan’s friend. I remember, both of you tearing through our backyard with nerf guns when I was nine.

I grew up with a brother who cared about me, and trusted you. And when I was left broken and torn apart by a high school boy, begging for someone to love me, you did. You said you did, you held my hand and you let me cry.

You cared about me.

And I needed you.

Maybe that’s why you were my lifeline. Because I was desperate for the attention I didn’t think I deserved. So when you looked at me and gave me something to move on for, I didn’t even second guess it.

I wanted to believe that you were good for me, because I felt better. When I didn’t think about us, I felt better. I felt better because I had someone, and worse because I had you. You were tearing me apart and pretending to piece me together.

So Ethan watched us like we were good together. He didn’t see. He didn’t see who you were because he trusted you, he didn’t know I was drowning because he thought you were pulling me out of the water. He watched you call me ‘Sarah bear’ and thought it was sweet.

And so did I.

I tried to believe it was bad, that we were bad, but I couldn’t, because I was knitted so tightly into you that I would just unravel if I let go. So I held on for dear life and let you destroy me because I convinced myself you were putting me together.

Ethan watched, I let you, and you… You pretended. I don’t remember who I was before you and your masked self.

You changed me. You watched me when I was torn apart and you pretended to put me back together the same. But you put me back together the way you wanted me, manipulated me into thinking I was the best version of myself when in reality I was so dependent on you I couldn’t let go.

But eventually, I did.

When things started getting out of hand, I finally looked you in the eye and admitted that we were over. That we should have been a long time ago.

But when I found myself walking away from you, I realized who you really were to me and what you had done.

You had knitted me together, and when I walked away, you were holding one end of my thread. You were unraveling me before my eyes, and I was left to gather myself up and figure out how to live again. How to knit myself back together.

It was a subtle but painful change, and when faced with reality I was left on my own again.

No more of you. No more of Nathan, the man who didn’t want me. The man who tried to take me.

The man who tried to convince me the bad was better without ever letting me acknowledge the bad.

So here I lay, on my bedroom floor, figuring out how I’m supposed to knit myself back together when I was so completely dependent on you for so long. And maybe I’ll never know how to knit myself together again. Because you did it once, and I don’t remember who I was before you. Before I changed.

Maybe it’s up to me to knit myself together again, not the same, no longer who I was.

I can’t reverse what you did to me. Can’t fix myself and pretend you didn’t exist, pretend you didn’t hurt me to the point of no return.

And finally, weeks after desperately searching for a way to put myself together again, I just let myself be something new. Someone new. Someone who had been in the worst situations with the worst people who she couldn’t even admit were bad, but who had learned and grown and changed.

You changed me, now I will change myself.