I don't think I do, truly.
There were these discussion we had before, ones where you promised you'd respect my decision, ones where you'd tell me that you would understand no matter what.
It was short lived. I thought you were different. I thought you changed, that you wouldn't be angry with me for finally knowing what I wanted. You told me you wouldn't be.
I wouldn't have treated you the way you treated me. That night, I held back. I tried so hard to keep calm, to explain my feelings.
For you, it was an attack.
I wanted to talk and god, it's all I ever wanted to do.
You never really listen to me, you only hear what I say so you can have your turn. You didn't respect me or my decisions, I know that much by your reactions.
You wanted me for what you envisioned and not for what I am. It feels like a betrayal, like you never really cared. You cared about what it could be and not what it was. It hurts.
I treated you with respect despite the little things you'd tell me, the unnecessarily crude and violent speech.
I treated you like someone, not something. You weren't some toy for me to pick up and throw away, you were someone I cherished: my best friend. The closest I had.
All I got in return was anger and pettiness, the things I worked so hard to stay away from. I treated you kindly so that you would never hate me, so that maybe, just maybe, this time could be different. I didn't want to lose you, not again. I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time because I didn't want to anger you, I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't want to give you a reason to think that I was a bad person.
I didn't do what I did before, even if you think so- it was so much more different back then. I remember what I'd typed out and how much I sent. I also remember the conversation that came after.
You forget that I remember.
Do you know what I remember?
I remember the countless times I said no all those years ago, when those hands of yours were on the places I didn't want them to be. When I would quicken my pace to get away from grabby palms.
I remember taking a picture at a western store. I liked the dress I'd found- a pretty, pale color with etched designs on the sheer fabric that laid over the thicker fabric underneath.
I remember sending it to you.
Do you remember what you told me that night? That same night I cried to myself the entire way home?
"Your arms look fat."
I'd never even thought of myself that way before, before you. I never considered myself anything but average. It changed after that, I became aware of my body in a way I never had before.
Before we broke up, there was something I'd talked to you about. Do you remember that? I do, very well actually. Because it wasn't just once- it was a couple of times.
It was about how uncomfortable I felt that you were so close with our friends, too close. The touching, the cuddling, the things we never did because I wasn't a touchy person after those incidences from before. You didn't like to listen to me. You heard my words, but you ignored them. No changes were made.
Then you stopped hearing my words. I asked you to listen to me- begged even, I would say. I wanted you to listen to me talk to you about life, about anything, but you always turned your head. It hurt bad. You still do it sometimes. This time it isn't because of someone else, though. I just can't help but be interrupted, I guess. No one ever really liked listening to me anyways.
I remember in the aftermath when we weren't on good terms anymore. I remember the way you'd look at me when I passed by and I had to ignore you, because that's what you'd do to me.
My friends told me you talked about me behind my back. They told me all the things you'd told them at lunch or outside. I remember, you know.
Why then, do you seem to make me the one whose always wrong? Why can't you ever own up to what you've done?
You forget that I harbor these memories in my small heart, the one that is so reluctant to share.
I don't know if I want it anymore. I'm tired of mending things, I'm tired of trying to stitch things together.
I'm tired.
