How To Let Go

In cliché love stories, it takes thirty chapters for the girl to end up with the boy. But it took us more than a book could actually hold. Alas, the odds were not in our favor and we didn't have the happiest every after. We started out as friends in grade seven. I met you but at the time the whole grade went through a thing where it was weird to talk to guys, so befriending you was out of the question. Then in grade eight, we talked and suddenly became best friends. You understood me and that was all I ever wanted in a person. My parents were shitty people, so took any companionship that was offered.

But like most eighth grade friendships, we drifted apart. You suddenly became this bad boy and I remained a goody-two-shoes. I bumped into you one day, and you asked me why we stopped talking, I answered some weird excuse hoping to end the conversation, but you just wouldn't give up. So we starting talking and inevitably developed feelings for each other. Because that's what happens, I meet you again and I can't help but fall in love with you all over again.

But the thing is, I loved you in a way no one ever did yet that wasn't enough for you. So you found yourself in the arms of another, and in other painful words, you cheated on me. I still remember that painful moment when I found you, legs tangled in someone else's. And what hurt the most is that we had so many plans in life that were once so vivid. We were both going to go to the same university as it was far enough from home and we could finally escape the small-town lives that we knew could never satisfy us. I was going to take a pre-med course, while you would do whatever you decided to do - you were always indecisive. We would get an apartment together and find jobs straight out of university, then life would go on after that. A dog maybe, kids eventually. But those dreams and those plans were suddenly lost and I was left holding onto what could have been.

I ended up going to that university but I never found you there. I felt betrayed because I was still holding up my end of the promises we made. And yet, in a stroke of luck, I transferred to another university where I found you once again. I wasn't following you but that coincidence, which we called a miracle, made us fall in love all over again. It was inevitable, I tell you. But it was almost like I couldn't help but throw myself into the destruction that you brought to my life.

I again fell for your spell, your bittersweet charm. For a second, I actually believed that you were different, that we were different and somehow, this time, our relationship would last. Like a moment of deju vu,  you cheated on me, once again - with my best friend. I was coming back to the dorm after my long and tedious lecture . Then I saw you two, in bed. You were kissing her with so much passion, it was as if you loved her. And I just wished that I was her. But you know what? It hurt, my heart broke in so many ways and I felt things that I thought weren't imaginable, and I can't forget that pain. Everything that I had spent so long to build just crumbled around me in mere seconds.

It reminded me of a story that my babysitter would tell me when I was younger. It was about a scorpion and a frog. A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates and asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too". Considering this, the frog agrees, but midway across the river, the scorpion does indeed sting the frog. The frog had just enough time to gasp "Why?" and the scorpion replies, "I can't help it, it's my nature."

That's who you remind me of, the scorpion. It didn't matter who you hurt in the process. You just had to do it, you had to cheat on me. But the thing is, you didn't die with me. Me being the frog, in that case, drowned alone while you found another frog to ruin.

A year later you got engaged to her, my best friend, but I knew she didn't love you. It was obvious that your money was all she wanted, but you loved her too much to notice, at least, that's what I think. Well, it's what I'd like to think. Honestly, she lacked imperfections. She was beautiful, kind and smart, everything you needed that I couldn't give you. So in some way, you deserved her. Because she was absolutely perfect.

I was at your wedding but you never saw me, I know that you were looking for someone, was that me? I've been thinking about it for nights now. Does some part of you still love me? I hope so, not that it would change anything. You didn't chase after me, it wasn't like one of those stories where you tell the bride that you couldn't go along with it because you saw me in the crowd. You loved her and maybe a small part of you cared for me, but it wasn't enough.

After four years I still love you and here I am writing this love letter to you even though you have a child and another one coming. I guess you're happy with her, not me. I would have loved to have a child of my own, except I can't. I can't have children, I'm barren, so I guess you ended up with the right person. But that's life, unfair, it doesn't matter who you are or whatever crap you have been through because life corrupts us all. You get to live a happy life, a blissful one, whereas I drew the short stick. I had to suffer through so much heartbreak just so you could live the perfect life and sometimes I like to think that it was worth that.

But now, I think that it's time to let go, I hoped you'd come back. But you won't walk through that door, you won't wake me up every morning with a kiss even though I'd complain because I was embarrassed of my morning breath. You won't set up picnics with ham and cheese sandwiches, you won't kiss all my tears away, and I'll never feel your lips against mine again.

But you know what makes it worse, we had so much history but no one cares about what happened in the middle, they care about the end. But I love the middle because you're there with me, all those joyful memories exist within the centre of our story. And I can't do anything but remember because you've already let go, you let go long before we broke up.

So all I do is sulk. I cry, I sleep, I work, I eat and I live. I don't want to love anymore, in hopes you'll come back. But I know you'll only ever be here in my mind and heart, but never in my arms.

I met you in December. I was walking down the street at midnight. It was freezing cold and all I had on was a tank top and some shorts on. Stupid me forgot that it would be cold. Suddenly I felt warmth drape over my shoulder. I panicked, then I looked back to see a handsome man my age, you. You gave me your coat because you noticed I was shivering. I just giggled and you stared at me weirdly.

I went to school the next day, and I saw you there. You looked so handsome standing there talking to your friends. After a week of not talking, I had the courage to walk up to you. That was the best decision of my life. We fell in love from that moment on, except this, all happened the sophomore year of high school. But after "it" happened, you stopped loving me, but I never stopped loving you.

 They say when you love someone you have to let them go. I never knew what that meant until it actually happened. I loved you, but I had to let you go, I have to let you go. Even if it meant I was going to die inside, I have to let you go. It's going to hurt a bit, but I need to do this for myself, I need to move on but I don't know how. They say letting go was so easy. People talk about letting go as if it's effortless like it just happens. You have to lift your fingers until you can see your palm. Bu they just want to think that, they want to believe it's easy. So it makes life seem a little bit better. I'm not asking for help, I just wanted you to know, I want you to know what I have been through. We're all afraid of pain. We're scared that there's no rainbow at the end of the rainstorm, we're scared that we'll all be losers in our own game. But now, I realize that just because there's no rainbow, the dove can still fly. It may sound very deep and might not make sense, but you're the dove, I'm the rain, and she's the sun. Together, her and I made the perfect rainbow, but no one wants the rain once the rainbow is made, so I had to go, I had to let you go. And that's what I did, I let go.