A year ago today I was sitting in my best friend’s car crying over you, wondering why I wasn’t enough, feeling like I had given you all of me only to be given nothing in return. I was broken. If someone would have asked me then if I ever thought I’d see a day when you meant absolutely nothing to me, I would have been appalled. No, of course not!

Well, a year later, we have reached that point. In fact, I’ve been at that point for (what seems like) a very long time now. With that in mind, I could write about how I can’t believe I allowed you to toy with me the way you did, how I should have known better, how I can’t believe I was that naïve. But this isn’t about me, and it will never be about me again. I will never again look at the time we shared and blame myself for the downfall. Why? Because this was all you. And you know that.

I really don’t understand what you were after. I don’t think I ever will, and that’s perfectly okay. I don’t want an explanation. But the fact that I was never treated with respect is what gets me. It was, in essence, a game, and in that game, you won a heart that you obviously never wanted in the first place. It was like arcade games—you spend hours playing, racking up hundreds of tickets, and with those hundreds of tickets you get a bouncy ball, or a bracelet that breaks soon after you get it. You worked so hard for those tickets, but you didn’t really want the prize. You just wanted the gratification of accomplishment.

It was never wrong of me to expect respect from a person I was willing to bend over backwards for whenever he needed me. (Really, it wasn’t, despite how you made me feel time and time again.) It was never wrong of me to expect that you knew better than to completely abandon a person who cared for you, significant other or not. (Because, you know, decent people don’t usually do that.) What I expected was basic human decency. I didn’t know that was so hard to give. For some, apparently, it is.

The game you played wasn’t fun for me. Really, I’m sure it wasn’t fun for any other girl, either. In the end, it led me to better things, and to the one thing, the one guy, who was there the whole time. Thanks for the memories. He tastes like you, only sweeter.

I’m finally done playing.