Well first off, I still love you, and I probably always will. That kinda really sucks, but just because I love you does not mean I can, nor do I ever want to be, with you again. You are amazing at making people who would do anything for you regret it. You took advantage of not only me, but your mom, your friends and probably your past relationships. Just because someone would do anything for you, doesn't mean they should. Sooner or later I would have had to get sick of it, or I would have given you my heart and begged you to break it.

You also only put in the effort when it was convenient for you. You only met with me when you could, you only did things when you wanted, and you only wanted to discuss our relationship when you saw it was slipping through your fingers.

That’s not how things work. If you love someone and care about them, you have to work with them in order to fix things, not one person putting in all the effort. I would drive five hours to see you, I would pay for your movie and your dinner and your clothes and you couldn't even make the effort of hanging out unless you wanted to. That’s not how relationships work. I might have been weak sometimes; but when I was weak, it was your responsibility to get me back where I was needed to be, in order for me to be happy. Not where you wanted me to be so I could be the most helpful for your little plan for the day.

I cannot even mention all of the girls you talked about, and all the times you made me feel inadequate. Yes, your new girl may have put you in your place more than I did – she may have used some newfangled tactic for making you stop hurting everyone. If she did, kudos to her, but with our relationship you always talked about other girls. You looked at other girls and even got really close to cheating, but not close enough that there would be any obvious consequences. I think that's the cruelest part of what you did. You never did anything so horrible on the surface that I had the upper hand to end things with you. You would do little shitty things that would hurt, but separately they couldn't possibly hurt as much as when you put them all together; so you never really saw how much you were hurting me because it was a gradual downfall.

You also never could end it. You still can’t end it. You do not understand that you lost me. I know you have a hard time losing your territory so I am really sorry to say this: you lost me. You pushed me away, and you broke me, and you could see it and you didn't stop it. You saw that I was hurting, but as long as it hurt more to lose your territory, you kept me around. As soon as your territory was slipping through your fingers, you lost your shit, and you lost me. I get that you had her and I was just a silhouette of the past, but you still needed me to be there and that is not OK. You might even be a saint now, but I needed to leave and you wouldn't let me. That’s not endearing. That’s cruel.

You might be OK for someone. You might find your princess. I may actually have just been a stepping stone, and that sucks. I thought that everyone else we dated were just stepping stones for us, but maybe we were just part of each others stories; maybe we weren't the main characters. I can’t wish you well. I can’t show up at your wedding, and we will never be friends, and that hurts because we thought our chapter was going to end differently, but nothing is really predictable.

We’re not going to be in each others lives, just each others minds and that’s going to fade gradually too. One day, I’ll drive past our grocery store, and I’ll just get my milk, not think about how we bought cookie dough to make cookies and dance around the kitchen that night. One day, I’ll hear your name and I won’t feel like I want to crumble. I am so glad you were part of my chapter, but I am more thankful that I was strong enough to not let you become the story.