I am Free.

The skies open up and water surges menacingly on the ground. So perfectly timed with my entrance, it almost feels like a message just for me. 

The one day that I forgot to bring an umbrella, and the world wants to get smart with me, and impart wisdom on me in a disparaging way. 

It seemed to be raining quite a bit lately. 

I open the door to the office and I am met with empty chairs and desks. Silence crept and it was almost eerie, as the typical environment was people bussing around too busy to even stop to have a conversation. 

The only person standing in the room is my boyfriend. We usually get here earlier than the rest so this was not an unusual occurrence. He is leaning on his desk, mindlessly sifting through papers. 

My gut screams at me as I approach him, but I push down those acidic thoughts, making them drown into nothingness. 

It is my birthday and he said that he was going to get me an amazing present this year. For the past five years that we have been together, he said that there was never a present good enough for me. 

So he would give me nothing. 

He greets me with a certain smile once I reach him, “Hey,” he says. 

“Hi, there.”

I look at him with expressive eyes, searching through his. Searching for an answer. My eyes drop down to his hands. 

Empty

I look back up to face him, “Do you have anything you want to say to me maybe...or give me?” I prompt.

“The Sens lost last night.”

“Oh,” I say, while taking a step forward on him, “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

His eyebrows furrow on me, “No. Why are you acting so weird?”

He looks at me in a way that makes me feel like I’m being teased, denigrated.

“I just feel bad, I’m sorry.”

He disregards me.

“I didn’t get you anything for your birthday, if that’s what you were acting so weird about. You know, you don’t have to act like you’re concerned about my feelings if you want something. Just communicate. It’s infuriating.”

My heart pangs against my chest. 

“Why didn’t you…” I say, my voice low, almost breaking. 

There wasn’t anything good enough.

I could hear the way that he would voice this excuse because I have become so far acquainted with it. 

“There wasn't anything good enough.”

“Not even flowers? I love flowers.”

“All the flowers were bad. Not good enough. And they are too expensive anyways.”

They are twenty dollars. 

“Too expensive?” I say. My voice holds conviction in it. A sense of authority I was not prepared for, nor did I think I was capable of.

“Don’t get all emotional on me now.”

All these years. All these years I spent fighting for someone not worth fighting for.

“I don’t have time for this,” he tells me. There was an underlying tone of amusement in his voice. He wants to laugh. But he holds back. Instead, he walks away. I feel myself start to follow. But I stop myself. 

A ripple of anguish tears through my spine. Suddenly I feel very nauseous. The ghost of tears that taint my cheeks becomes real and tangible. My heart feels entangled. My chest rises. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. The quickness of my breath is too fast for me to handle. 

All I ever gave you was my love. But it was not enough for you. I made myself so vulnerable for you. But you did not care. You never cared.

I break. Suddenly standing up feels indifferent to me. And I break. I fall to my knees. And hold onto my heart. I’m reduced to tears. Tears that come from sobbing deep in my chest. That makes the whole world stutter for a moment. But I let them, I encourage them, to completely consume me. To allow them to lift the fog in my mind. The weight off my chest. I let the whole world open up to me. I let this moment guide me. 

Everything, all at once, as if my mind is trying to overwhelm me with my own thoughts, becomes abundantly clear. Obvious. So apparent that I could hold a grudge with myself for not allowing me to realize sooner. 

My heart once belonged to you. But you treated it like it was replaceable. 

I feel so completely and unexplainably betrayed. I feel nothing. I feel exchangeable. 

My heart was ignited. So filled with love. So desperate to share its unparalleled kindness. 

I stand up.

With determination in my stride, I approach the guy who my head and my heart has decided is no longer my boyfriend. I tap his shoulder. He turns around.

And I say, “We’re done.”

Simple, yet effective.

And I walk away.

Too proud to even stay to see his reaction. 

All this time, my gut was trying to tell me. It was trying to warn me. It was trying to stop me from falling into oblivion, blinded by actions so insincere that it almost feels sinister. My heart aches for an answer, but all I can come up with is that I was never important. And that is why I always felt so unimportant. That is why I spend those countless, almost humorously countless nights, crying deep from my chest, from a place of despair so far lost that it could slip through and go unnoticed. 

But it is noticed now.

I notice it now.

I notice the wrenched tangle of nerves that was always lodged in my stomach every-time I spent time with him. 

These feelings will never go unnoticed again.

I won’t let them.

I will give them the voice they deserve. And the redemption that it has worked and fought so hard for.

This clarity pushes the dark clouds aside, exiles them from existence. The sky opens up with blue, and sunshine, signaling a promising future ahead.