a letter

 you're not reading this, but if you are, when you see it, can you tell me if you think you did the right thing? is this what you wanted? I felt so powerless when it happened, and I feel remorseful and ashamed of the last 7 months, the months when I tried to love you less. I sometimes sit and wonder if you feel like I do, broken up inside and worried, and worthless, alienated, and I sometimes even hope you feel those things, but I end up imagining you feeling nothing but indifferent and apathetic. I'm sorry I was withdrawn. If I could change things about how I behaved the summer of 2017, I would. I don't know how life works, and it's hard for me to understand that one day you have someone and the next day you don't. I didn't know you were feeling this way, I didn't know this was an option you were considering. Maybe if I had, I would have tried harder. I blame myself for thinking you'd stick around, like you always did, but as soon as I stopped fighting, stopped the outrageous fighting that I had continued for the last four years, the fighting for you and the intense grip I had on everything. as soon as I stopped, you stepped away. Was I blind to this inevitability? If I had known, I would have given you a hug. You know, that last day, when you came over, and you needed someone, and I wasn't the person you needed me to be. We went through the drive-through and I complained about your dog in defense of my own vulnerability. You remember, when you were leaving, and we looked at each other, and I knew you wanted a hug, and you knew I didn't want to give you one. I can't reach out to tell you this. I don't feel like I'm allowed to, like suddenly you've created an invisible boundary that neither of us defined but that I think would be crossed if I tried to define it. I wish I would have said more. I wish it could have been different. I keep replaying it back in my mind; if I had known, I would have pulled you in and held you, at least one last time, to send you off with some semblance of love instead of all the cold I shot at you.