The Prime Factor of Lost Love

Dearest Gracie,

This… is hard.

How do I even start?

Such a thing should be said aloud.

Instead, I cowardly write it in a note and send it.

Forgive me. It is obnoxious, I know. But I am not so brave.

Gracie, I hate you. I hate you with everything I am and everything I have. So much.

For years, you have made my very existence hell. To finally be free of you is a joy. Truly.

It was not an easy choice to make. In a way, I’m glad you made it for me. I wouldn’t have left alone.

In fact, I couldn’t have left alone. I didn’t see you for who and what you really are. A weapons-grade bitch, making my life hell every single fucking day.

The best years of my life are gone, and you had most of them. You are an energy vampire, a sadist, pure evil. A Dementor. A thief of joy. A ball-ache.

Knowing you was a chore. The fact that you’ve tainted some of the best memories I have to date is sickening. Thank Christ our kids look nothing like you. At least I can still look at them.

My brain’s all over the place. You and your numbers, poring over finance sheets endlessly because of your obsession. I wonder if you’ll figure out the theme here? Probably not. You always were a little bit dim. Never got the point.

Never ever got the point, actually. Every single argument we had ended with you crying because you couldn’t see past your fucking nose. Never wrong. Always upset that no-one came to you, but never saw that when they did, you pushed them away.

AND YET… I believed I could fix you. As you sat there with your long face, unhappy with the world that bettered you, I thought I could help. Thought I could please and fulfil you. But you were always just plain miserable. A teaspoon has more personality.

I am in the prime of my life, now. Moving on to bigger, better things. To a life that’s more my standard. Happier, more enriched, than any of the years I spent under your morose and melancholic umbrella. The prime of my existence is here. And you are not. What a beautiful synchronicity.

Your self-obsession will ruin you. Your endless labelling of yourself in a desperate bid to fit in somewhere, anywhere, will destroy you. Your unwillingness to be happy, or accept that life has its momentary discomforts, will drown you. You will suffocate in your loneliness later on. And I will thrive in the little patch of sunny heaven I’ve chosen.

I never wanted it to end this way. But how can I be with someone who sits maudlin in the hopes that the world around them will change? You and I were good, once, Gracie. But you keep holding me back, and I can’t take it anymore. You’ll kill me. Or I’ll kill you. You threaten me with suicide often enough.

Sure, there is a large part of me that wishes I could sit opposite you and tell you this to your face. Undoubtedly, these words will end up on social media, twisted to suit your own sorry narrative of the hard-done-by victim. Let it, say I. Proclaim away. It won’t change what’s passed between us, and it won’t stop my success, Gracie. I will always keep going.

There’s a small part of me that hopes you get the help you clearly need. You keep saying you’re mentally ill, but where is the doctor? The therapist? Where is the appreciation of I, who sat for hours and listened to you label me in the same way you label yourself? The appreciation of I, who reached out in panic that you’d actually end your life? Where is my acknowledgement, hmm?

It does not exist. Not for me. I’m okay with that. See, Gracie, there is someone out there who thrives under your condescending ways, your constant need for labels and names, the whiplash one gets when you decide you’re offended. At some point, darling, grow up. Move alone. Grow as a human. Don’t stagnate in a history you’ve woven for yourself, with threads of lies and deceit, that you’re convinced are your truths.

For someone who adores the logic of numbers, and who claims to appreciate literature, your lack of understanding, empathy and acknowledgement of people as beautiful pieces of art astounds me. Your lack of desire to put actions to your own words (as is entirely logical) is astonishing. Your so-called ‘appreciation’ of the human condition… where is it? Or does that only apply to those who are struggling the same as you? Do people like me not get a pass?

You’ve been lucky, dear Gracie. To have your own world not cave in because of your desires… not everyone can claim such luxury, yet you cry and whine as though you have suffered ardently for them. You haven’t. At some point I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. What did you actually want?! I feel your only goal in life is to be as miserable as you physically can. At least write some fucking poetry about it, like Brooke, or Byron. Please.

I try to remember the good times, though, Gracie. The times where we laughed, and joked, and cried over stupid videos of cats and dogs, and kids falling over. I try to hold onto those, because that makes you human. I remember the good times, the dinners, breakfasts, late nights staying up shooting the shit. Sunsets, sunrises… yet those memories are tainted by what you did. How much I had to give up for you. How much of myself I had to remove to be less of a threat.

The day we met will always be special. Do you remember, Gracie? It was Math class. You were shy. Yet, you could recite all the prime numbers to 100 without hesitation. And I loved that quirk. Does this letter make you realise how much I actually did care for you? Each paragraph is a prime number. A final hurrah. Not to say I’ll come back, but to remind you that those you hurt by proclaiming that no-one reaches out to you… it’s people like me who get hurt. I only hope you realise before it’s too late.