“It’s not you, it’s me.”
The oldest breakup line in the book.
And also the fakest.
“I just think our lives are moving in two different directions. I mean, you’ve almost finished your schooling to be an artist and I am busy all day at the news station. It just seems like we’d never have time to see each other. I-” he paused, shifting his weight from one leg to another, “I don’t know, Alex. You might find we could work this out but I just don’t think I’d have time for a relationship…
“You’re great, Al, really, but-” Matt paused again, hesitated even.
I met his uncertain look with my own tear-stained eyes.
There’s always a “but”. Always. Because I’m never enough.
I’m great, but.
I love you, but.
This is fun, but.
Adding “but” just erases what you said before it.
“But what?” I whispered.
I tried to hold Matt’s gaze. Tried to make him witness how bad he was hurting me by doing this. ‘Look at my tears, boy. Look at what you’re making me feel. ‘
He pushed his thick, dark hair out of his face and rubbed the two day stubble on his chin.
We both knew what he was going to say.
I just wished he could find it in him to miraculously love me again and ask if we could just work through this. Ask if I could forget he ever said anything.
“But,” he started, “my career is more important.” He whispered the last few words as if he knew the severity and ridiculousness in which they were soaked in.
Matt stepped away from me. Turning his back, he slowly backed off Olive Garden’s curb and toward the parking lot.
The final steps- finalizing his breakup speech.
Finalizing us.
Alex and Matt.
Matt and Alex.
No more.
And as I watched the love of my life walk away from me, that’s when I felt it. It was like I was being poked with a hot probe, right in my chest. My heart was absolutely burning, breaking.
Torn.
The man I grew to love, dedicated five years to- destroyed me.
And suddenly I was sobbing uncontrollably. Tears came like a tsunami down my face, snot along with it. I threw my arms around myself and slowly fell to the cold cement sidewalk below me.
I don’t know how long it was that I was sitting there, in Olive Garden’s entrance, foolishly crying over the betrayal and hurt a boy could cause, but it was an old couple who interrupted me.
