To the first boy I ever loved,

You are a lot of things to me, the first guy I ever loved, the first guy to break my heart, my first boyfriend, the guy I lost my virginity to, the guy who made me want to die because I was in so much pain. You were also the guy who broke me. You were the first guy I ever really wanted to date. You made me believe that people change, and maybe they do, because you changed me.

I remember the first time I saw you. Like the first time I ever really saw you as more than a face. We were at a Debate Tournament and I looked across the cafeteria and saw you walking out through the windows. I am pretty sure my heart skipped a beat. That was five years ago. Two years ago, we started dating. You were home from college and I was graduating high school. It still seems like a dream. The first time I realized I loved you we were in a park, you asked me to be your girlfriend, like all officially and sh*t. You were talking about kids and you said that you’d just let your kids do whatever and their mom would hate it. I thought that I wanted to be that mom, and then suddenly my heart skipped like three beats and it connected the feeling to my brain. I loved you.

I am not really sure why. I am sure that it will go into a physiology book one day about the mere mystery of how I could love a boy that treated me so badly? How can you love a boy who does done nothing but destroy you? How can you love a boy who made you want to be dead rather than fight through the pain? It’s actually quite simple. I thought the world of you. I fell in love with you because you could possibly be the smartest person I have ever met or will meet. You have so much potential and it kills me that you don’t use it. You made me feel like the most important, beautiful, and special girl in the world. You made me believe that I could do anything I wanted. The moments when you rooted for me. But those moments, they were far and few in-between.

There were the moments when you made me feel small, when I would think to myself about how much I was going to prove you wrong. There were moments when I just didn’t understand. I didn’t understand how you could tear me down so fast, or how you could just be so mad when I did nothing wrong. Maybe I did. Maybe I should have invited you when I went out, but a part of me knew you wouldn’t want to come, so why get my hopes up? Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to plan ahead for me. Maybe I shouldn’t have voiced my opinion or tried to make conversation about topics that I had yet to reach in my schooling. I just didn’t want you to think I was boring. Maybe I shouldn’t have done a lot of things. Like keep coming back to you.

You broke me, you broke me in a way that only you would understand because girls before me, broke you that same way. And I was the one who was punished for it. I was the one who had to try harder, had to break down walls, because they hurt you so badly. I understand it now; it is one of the many things that only you understand. Just one of the side effects of dating you. You once said that you were in so much pain you were numb, that you only tried to get through the day. I should have realized that you had no room for me then, but it was too late, I was already madly in love with you. I get it now, the feeling of not being able to feel anything, being in so much pain you can’t breathe, just trying to make it through the day. And you are the only person I don’t have to explain it to.

Missing you is something I do every day, it’s like an emotion that is built into me. I miss you every day, there hasn’t been a day in two years that I haven’t thought about you. And it kills me. Somedays I cry myself to sleep because you aren’t there to make me stop. I crave this raw moment we had, when I started crying for no apparent reason and you held me. Then you took me into your room, and we sat on your bed, and you told me that I was your person, the person you would never get over. I hope that’s true, every day I hope you are missing me as much as I miss you. I hope that you think of me sometimes and you lose your breath. I pray to God that this is hard for you as it is for me.

Everything always comes back to you, most of my bad days end up with me missing you. All of my achievements lead to me wanting to tell you. When I walk downtown it reminds me of you. When I go to my favorite sushi place, no matter how many people I take there, I never sit where we sat. When I go Table Rock, I think of you. When I walk past PF Changs, I think of you and our first date. When I got to Sandi Point. When I sit in the business building, because you’d text me in class. When I am in the library late at night and I wonder if you have stopped studying yourself. When finals week comes along and I wonder if you have slept at all that week. When it's spring break, when you come home and I hold my breath for you to contact me. When an unknown number comes up and I pray it’s you. You tainted this town, there isn’t very many places I can go that doesn’t remind me of you. When I lay in my bed at night, it feels incredibly empty because you were once here. It kills me to not be with you. As bad as the bad moments were, as much pain you put me through, you also made me extremely happy. No guy has ever made me feel the way you have, if anything they always make me want you more. You were going to be my happy ending.

I really do know why we can’t be together. There are a million reasons why we won’t work. But that doesn’t mean I hate you. Trust me, I wish I did. When I finally told you I loved you, two years later, I just wanted you to know because maybe it would make you hurt less. I thought that this was really going to be it, we would click and the universe would come together and we would end up together. That somehow, some way it would work for us. But you didn’t seem to think so, or want it, or want me. I will never understand what scared you so much about me loving you. I could never hurt you. I could never think of one way I could. But here we are, separate. We could have been so much, together.

I might not ever be your happy ending. But I really do hope that you find her. I hope that you find a girl who loves you, and you love her. I hope you treat her well; I hope she is kind to you. God bless her heart. I hope that you end up happy, that you really do push through all of your pain, and stop doing things that feed it. I hope that you know how strong you are, because you are one of the strongest people I have met. I hope that you do amazing things. I hope you realize how much you could conquer. I would vote for you for president no questions asked, even to this day. I will probably always love you. I wish you the best. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact I will probably never see you again. You will never know how much I am going to accomplish with my life, you may never know if I leave our small town. And I am OK with that, because everyday I wake up and I remind myself why we can’t be together. Even if you did love me, which I know you did, and even if we loved each other at the same time, we are toxic for each other. There is something about us that kills each other. That doesn’t mean though I don’t wish you the very very best that this world has to offer.

You may have broken me, but I survived.

Love,

The girl who could have given you everything