I'm not here to make you feel sorry for me or to blame you for our relationship ending. I don't find fault in you — not for that, anyway. What we had was a natural disaster, beautiful but devastating.
And bound to leave us torn apart, laying amidst the ruin.
I'm also not here to convince you that being together is in any way good for either of us. It's not. It may have been, once upon a time, but that hour has long since passed.
I'm here because, by the time you are reading this, these will be the words you need to hear. And, more importantly, they are words I needed to tell you.
One day, you'll miss me in the kind of way that makes you lose your breath and clench your stomach as you beg for it back.
Something will happen — a fleeting memory, a throwback to one of our songs on the radio, a woman walking by wearing my perfume, driving by one of our forbidden spots — something mundane. Only this time, it will change everything.
It will break you.
One day, you'll understand how badly you hurt me when you see the same pain in your daughter's eyes.
She'll come home. Slam the door and rush upstairs to her room. You'll go to her door and hear her muffled cries. You'll knock twice, and she won't answer. When you knock again, she'll open the door, her face streaked with mascara and masked by unfathomable hurt.
Your heart will shatter twice. She'll collapse into your arms, and it'll take everything in you to hold yourself together.
That's when your mind will flash to my face in the rearview mirror the night you told me it was over. You'll understand how broken I was. And it will break you.
One day, you'll grow up and become the kind of man your daddy would be proud of. By then, hopefully, you'll have shaken the weight of guilt you've carried around for too long. By then, prayerfully, you'll have forgiven yourself for the boy you once were.
One day, you'll want nothing more than for me to know how sorry you are for all of this — for hurting me. But by then, I won't even recognize your name.
Just know that I've forgiven you, and I've moved on. I'm happier now, and I'm being treated good. I have all the things I always wanted in life, and I found them without you. I'm content.
You broke me, but not forever.
I wasn't right for you, but you taught me how to grow into the woman I needed to become so I could be right for him. And boy, are we right for one another.
One day, I hope you find the one who's right for you too. And this time, I know you won't let her get away.
