Semper Fidelis

Dear E,

Do you remember the first night we really talked about us? I told you I was scared of falling in love with you, of risking it with you. You told me we deserved the chance, that we needed to take a leap of faith and if it does not work out, at least we tried. You know, I always feared that. Us not working out.

The first time I encountered an issue with your ex, I cried to my friend, J. You probably know who this was one is because he was the first friend of mine you met. I told him that the issue at hand was a non-negotiable for me. I wanted to walk away. I really did. But something told me to risk it for once. So I did.

Looking back, I knew I did not love you right away. I think what got me invested was that I was able to bring out a part of me that I never brought out with A. I tried harder for us. I loved the way I was in it with you. I fell in love. Then we started losing it. Somewhere along the way, we did. Maybe because we let her in too much. You did. You did not defend us. All you did was to tell me to stop dealing with her. I dealt with her because you won’t.

Do you know why I started pulling away in 2016? I saw you falling out of it. You became a little more tired asking me how I was. You started exerting less effort. You refused to listen. You were my best friend when we started and I lost you in 2016. I pulled away because I needed you the most then. I was going through the most difficult time of my life and all you could tell me was “Why do you always see the worst in me?”. I was tired. I was fighting hard for a relationship with you but you kept letting your lies, secrets and your ex ruin it.

It hurt when I realized that breaking it off out of good faith thinking I was the one cheating was stupid because I found out later on you cheated on me. Why? Why would you ever do that to me? I always hated people from that school and you promised me you would never do that. Why did you? Do you remember that you never even apologized for that? As if it was not enough to cheat on me once but there was a fuck buddy all along. Do you know how traumatized I was after that? I let go of myself in 2018. That’s how traumatized I was. I lost myself that year trying to prove to myself I can be happier than you are. You never properly owned up to what you did to me. It still haunts me to this day.

You know when we fought in 2020, that was bottled up feelings. I was asking myself how the guy who traumatized me can be happier than I was. How you can easily tell me to let it go when you never took accountability. You never had the right to tell me to just “move on” because it’s in the past. That’s not how trauma works.

At the end of it all, I gave myself the closure I needed. I tried to heal on my own and I must say, there’s no fully healing from that. I was traumatized forever. But still, all I wanted out of it was to have a mature conversation with you. None of the “let it go. Move on” but helping clarify where it went wrong so that maybe we can avoid that with our partners now. I really want to once and for all, close this chapter with you. I closed the book, to be quite honest. But some days, it just gets me. I want to find it in my heart to move past it with no bitterness.

Truth be told that despite all the bad things, I was thankful for you. You were my best friend, my rock. That’s why it hurt too much when you hurt me. I was so used to having you in my life. Having you support me then poof, you were gone. It was hard to recover. But I’m sure there was a reason that for some unfortunate circumstance, that had to happen. Maybe because I had to experience the ugliest side of love to better appreciate the best side of it.

Ayun. I’m hoping that before you take another step or milestone for your future, we could close this part. Just reach out to me because I will never have the guts to reach out to you.

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