I feel, or rather do not feel, the emptiness of having nothing left.
Friday night, I went to our home to collect my remaining items. He showed me the ring we designed together three years ago and said “I can live the answer but I can’t live with the question: Will you marry me?”
The flush and push in my stomach, the outward press of heartache, the inward clutching of confusion and the burdening burgeoning knowledge of my total lack of knowing anything.
And the ring was perfect. IS perfect. We made it together, for me, and it took my breath away.
I told him that I couldn’t say no, but I couldn’t say yes. I wanted to say yes. I’ve wanted to say yes for four and a half years.
Saturday he told me he found out about me cheating on him. He told me I’m gross; I disgust him. Asked how I could live with myself. I answered that I barely could. I’m barely able.
If you’re reading this, hear me say now, it was not an attack. Despite its obvious violence to you, to our relationship, I was not trying to hurt you. I did what I did. And then I broke up with you.
He came to my house yesterday and we spent eight hours talking, exhausting ourselves with roundabout conversations which left me hopeful, tearful, fearful. We promised to talk, to go to therapy with each other, take time to see if we could work through this. He cradled me in his arms. He asked me to wear the ring.
He left; he called two hours later to tell me never mind. He couldn’t get over it. Told me I was gross, again.
And my heart breaks, again. And it’s all about him. My heart breaks for him. My family cares about him and how he feels, his family cares about him and how he feels. I am punished, tortured, ring on my finger, ring off my finger, I’m gross, I’m disgusting.
Again, if you’re reading this, just know that you’ve killed me. If you needed to exact vengeance, to balance it all out, you did it.
And I still love you. I reach for your name in conversation only to find the book removed from the shelf. I hear your voice, your humor, and it’s all just a haunting. I am haunted. The music, the letters, the pictures — they are all negative space and their absence is exponentially more painful than the presence of you and your confusion and cruelty.
I hurt you. And I have been hurt by you, but you don’t care anymore. Your hurt matters more. Your hurt matters enough that we don’t have a chance, and that says everything.
And so now it’s over. It’s mutual.
I love you.
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.