I tried to be what you needed me to be because that’s what you deserved, but I just couldn’t do it. You were gone all the time, but it wasn’t your fault, it was your job. The loneliness had just started to set in and I was always my own worst enemy. I went out for a walk one day, a few weeks after you’d left, trying to clear my mind of the heat from your body coddling mine as we lay in your bed. I could never sleep because I didn’t want to miss a moment I had with you, but I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t think of anything but running away when you were gone. In the midst of daydreaming away a daydream, I ran into someone. As we stood there awkwardly, he asked me to coffee and I didn’t say no. I thought I would die from the rush I got, I hadn’t had coffee in ages, I forgot how good it tasted to be bad. You never even drank tea anymore. He and I ran through downtown dancing on pavements and dodging into sideways places when the rain made an appearance. I looked over at him and felt in my heart the lapse I did when I was eighteen and looked into my young lover’s eyes for the first time. I believed that we would never be apart but knew deep down that everything he offered me would never be enough. But we enjoyed our time of running towards street lights in the lazy summer’s midnight. It was much like the first time I looked into your eyes. There was such a pure sincerity that I almost backed away right then and there because I always knew that I would be the one who broke your heart. But I stayed and tried to be who you needed me to be because I was willing to do anything to run away from the naive girl who so foolishly loved without hesitation. But as night fell and we stood underneath the lamp post with our milk shakes in hand, my favourite thing, as if he’d known me all my life, he looked into my eyes and saw the girl who was begging to be saved. Begging to be shown the world in ways that you, nor anyone else, could show me. So when he leaned in to kiss me, I didn’t stop him. I turned my head and his soft lips landed on my cheek. I held delicate fingers to his face as I smiled and wrote my number on his arm. When I got home that night and called you, I told you that I couldn’t do this anymore, but I never told you why. So I’m writing you this letter, I’m leaving it on your bed, because I couldn’t be here tomorrow when you read this and sit on the edge of the bed we’ve shared and wonder what went wrong. Just know this wasn’t your fault, this was mine. It was mine for not being able to love you in the way you deserve. Mine for running off into the sunset with a stranger who saw through all my walls and made me feel whole again. No matter how hard we’ll try, he and I will never leave. We’ll always end up together because the strings on his heart are the same as the strings on mine. I’m so sorry. |