We were such a cliché from the very beginning: two gangly, awkward teenagers, first loves—or so we thought—telling each other that it was all going to work out.

You told me we'd get married someday, and I believed you. A mistake on both our parts.

We didn't tell anyone about us for the longest time—at first because we were both afraid, and then because you were.

You wanted me when we were alone and cast me aside when we weren't; your parents still don't know I'm your ex. In fact, they never knew I was your girlfriend at all. You let go of my hand the minute we were in public, so fast that I thought maybe my hand had charged with lightning and somehow shocked or burned you.

Sometimes, in a spare moment, I wonder why you separated me from all the other people in your life. Was it because I'm not white, not what you expected for yourself? Would your parents have denounced our interracial relationship? Would your friends have mocked you for being with me?

Whatever your reasons were, you made me feel unclean. Hidden away like some dirty little secret, someone you weren't proud to be with, someone with little value, someone to be used.

In essence, you broke my heart—and I want to thank you for it.

I never thought I'd have the strength to break up with you—we never talked about it, but we both knew that if things between us were going to end, you'd be the one to end them. Getting my heart broken by you made me realize that walking away from you, from us, would be the healthiest thing for us both—and so I did.

Breaking up with you hurt…but it was also the most liberating thing I had ever done in my life. I used to think of love as one of those pit-traps they show hunters setting in moves—the camouflaged ones just waiting for some unsuspecting beast to tumble into them. Once you're caught in one of those, you have no agency; you can't save yourself. You're stuck, no matter how badly you might want to escape. I believed love was similarly debilitating and inescapable—something I could fall into but never really fall out of.

But…when you broke my heart… I did fall out of love. More accurately, I chose to stop loving you—and the moment I realized I could make that choice was a huge step forward in my sense of personal agency. As much as you were in control of our relationship, I was too—and a broken heart finally made me see that.

Leaving you forced me to recognize the courage I had shown in being with you in the first place. You will never understand the kind of belief I had in you—the kind mettle it took for me to tell my family about you. I was willing to come up against my culture, my family, and the values I'd been indoctrinated with, all for the chance at having a future with you. I have the courage to fight for the people I love, no matter how much conflict it stirs up, which is more than I can say for you.

I used to think having a broken heart was the worst thing in the world…until you broke my heart, and I got over it. I thought I'd remember what it was like to be with you forever, but it's going on three years and my memories of you are already getting blurry.

I hope you're doing well—I know I am. Good luck with everything in your life. I hope you find love again someday, because I already have, and it's pretty amazing.

Thanks for the broken heart—you'll be happy to hear it healed a long time ago.