"Hey."
3 letters. One word. One word that popped up on my notifications on a regular January day. Perhaps the simplest word in the human language, but on that day, it introduced me to the man who would change my life forever.
I'm writing this today to say, hey. Remember me?
I'm writing this because I don't think you realize what you've done.
I loved you.
On February 13th when you told me that you didn't care about the distance, you just wanted to officially make me yours, I loved you.
With each text I sent to a friend about how I couldn't get any luckier because I had found my forever, I loved you.
Through the days you were hundreds of miles away and did everything you could to make sure it felt like you were right next to me, I loved you.
When I told you I couldn't take the pain of the distance anymore and gave up on our relationship, I loved you.
During the months where you never gave up and pushed me to let you back into my life while I turned you away, I loved you.
When I saw you take the pain of losing me and mask it with a new girl, I loved you.
When I finally got the chance to call you mine again after realizing what I had lost, I loved you.
And through it all, you loved me.
Or did you?
Throughout our months apart, the emotion you showed me, the love you tried to prove to me, the chances you begged me to take...it all turned into few word responses and your fear to feel anything for me anymore.
I put this on myself. I blame myself for your loss of hope and emotion because I drove you to give up on us, didn't I?
You once said to me, "I can forgive you for hurting me, but I can't forgive you for not fixing it."
The problem with this was that once I dedicated my life to fixing it, I spent each day wishing you would wake up and love me a little harder, a little more like the way you did before, but you never did.
And then the day came that I saw you with her. My heart dropped to my stomach and I felt a sadness and sense of anxiety that I'd never felt before.
Opening my phone on a day that started off just like any other and seeing a picture on social media of my boyfriend publicly cheating on me is an emotional scar I can never patch up.
And the worst part is, you didn't care.
You broke me and never turned back.
Each day that passes, I bury it a little deeper.
Each day I wake up and tell myself that today is the day I'll be okay again.
Because of you, my family looks at me and knows I'm not myself anymore.
Because of you, I am numb.
Because of you, I don't know if I will ever be able to purely feel something for someone ever again.
Because of you, each guy that tries to get me to open up has to listen to me tell them why I have a wall up and why I am the way I am.
Because of you, I can't trust anymore.
Because of you, I can't believe in love anymore.
Because of you, I struggle each time you cross my mind to understand how I can give up so much of my emotion to someone that doesn't deserve an ounce of it.
But also....
Because of you, I am strong.
You threw us away without so much as an explanation and because of that, I now know how much more I deserve from someone who claims to "love me".
I now know to never let a man make me forget my worth.
Each day I get stronger and I can't wait for the world to see the confident, independent woman I have become since you left.
The day this is published will be the day it would have been our yearly anniversary. Over the course of our relationship you showed me that love is real, but that so is betrayal.
I don't know if this will even phase you in the slightest. But I can only hope that when you come across this article, you will truly realize the extent of your actions.
I hope that maybe you'll finally understand the emotional damage you put on a girl that once meant everything to you.
