a letter to you

hi there i hate you right now. i feel so sick and awful and ugly and horrible and annoying and embarrassed that you didnt tell me that you werent in love with me sooner. sure, you can say you love me all you want, you can say that im so important to you. but if i really was, you wouldnt have fucked me over like this. i left your house and cried the whole drive home, got home and cried some more. and because i know you dont love me i fucking redownloaded tinder and made a new account and immediately got a bunch of matches. oh great im so excited that these strangers like my boobs wow yay. i feel sick everytime i open it. i look through all these people who want me, who think i’m hot and who want to fuck me and all it makes me think about is how you dont want to fuck me and how you are not in love with me. were you ever in love with me? were you serious? did i overwhelm you or something. i wasnt even this miserable when i was seven and thought my dad was going to die. i wasnt even this miserable when i was thinking of shooting myself in the fucking head before i got medicated. yeah yeah dont worry im not going to kill myself because outside of you everything is pretty great. my job is great, i almost have my degree, i have wonderful friends and my immediate family is really supportive. the thing is that i wanted to be the one that you were in love with. i wanted you to feel how i feel about you. i know i cant demand that of you. i wish i could be a bitch and send you this letter and leave you voicemails of me sobbing or something unhinged like that. but the most fucked up thing about you breaking up with me is that all i can think about is how you must have other things stressing you out, as if i am not an important part of anything. and also telling someone that theyre perfect is not right, because it is a nothing word (like important) it doesnt tell me anything about how you feel. and it’s frustrating that i wont ever know what you meant by “a while”. i’m gonna have to be honest and say that i can probably never see you again. i will listen to “how’s it going to be” by third eye blind and sob, but i will not be able to walk through your front door or run into you at a friend’s house. i must let myself be my priority. and being friends with you is not in my cards (get it, i believe in tarot and astrology and you dont? funny tho because our astrology is really good so maybe that is joke too, like how i am a joke to you) planning breaking up with me while making me finish a fucking videogame is insane. i could have lived without the ending if you coould have been honest with me sooner. this will sound pathetic (at least it does to me) but i am still in love with you and even though i could have had sex the same day you broke up with me, i dont think i want anyone to ever look at me again because i am thinking about you. an di know youre insecure about a lot of stuff, but you dont really let yourself get any help so maybe do that. i hate myself for thinking about you so much and for dreaming about you redoing youre breakup with me where it ends more favorably. i know you will never love me again if you ever did and i have to live with that. so tell Apollo i love him and have nightmares about breaking my heart

remember, when you tell people we broke up, you broke up with me, and it wasnt a mutual thing.

So, hypothetically you’ve always been wrong, again.

Imagine that you have been in a relationship with him for almost eight months. You start kinda noticing that maybe you aren’t spending too much time alone together, which is odd because before you ever dated you always spent time alone together. Whatever, right? Except no, it’s not whatever, you’re a grownup and can tell him how you feel and all that because he can tell you.

For example, in March just before going out to the movies (with all one billion of your friends) he says he doesn’t like some of the jokes you make and something else that you can’t really remember rn as it is being overshadowed by another feeling (lmao no you feel normal fr and not upset at all) anyway you’re like of course “i’ll stop saying things that could be hurtful, but also know that i don’t ever mean to be hurtful.” and that’s that. There’s also the whole thing with the out of country trip. oh, did i mention you guys went on a trip for a week outside of the u.s.? huh no? well, you did. day before flight is stressful to say the least, you are still in school and trying to finish the semester and have this week long trip that is stressful for that reason (god damnit how did you not see all of this coming. you should have known before he fucked up your brain and unfortunately your heart too.) anyway, evening before the flight, he hasn’t packed, you still need to finish and his mom shows up and wants to see him and your brother and sister-in-law are also in town. so basically it’s a back to back nightmare of him meeting your family, you seeing his mom and you also saying the wrong thing in front of your family about his hobby. He brings it up later when you’re alone and it seems to be resolved bc you know you biffed that. Next day, you get to the airport late but luckily make your flight and everything is fine. But it isn’t because you had ear surgery a few weeks prior and he has a nicotine addiction. yay! he gets angry and snappy and you kinda don’t notice until you get to where you’re staying. you talk to the concierge and they say your room isn’t ready so he kinda gets pissed. you are like okay, maybe go walk and check out this one place to see if they have vapes. wrong move! he’s gone for like forty five minutes, comes back pissed as fuck and basically drags you over to the concierge desk to check if your room is ready (luckily it is this time) so you get up to the room blah blah blah and he kinda has a tantrum. (it hurts to be honest about this because you still love him because youre an idiot and a joke ughghgghghghgh) but he throws a major ick fit and you get to finding where nicotine can be got, get an uber and take him with you to the place. of course, youre lost at first and dont know where the place is and youre internet is bad and again there are all of these bad things, but eventually you find the place and the problem seems solved… for now. rest of the week goes by, pretty fun, but maybe is it weird that you guys only have sex like once? on what should be a romantic trip away? flash forward, at the airport about to fly home, he goes off the handle on you and says you’ve been condescending to him when you’ve brought up the nicotine shit (even though you were just trying to make jokes about it bc of how uncomfortable it made you feel) anyway you apologize and it’s whatever once again. you are relieved to get back home and to see your roommates pick you up. i mean, the trip was mostly fun right?

so that’s that over. school is out, youre still super busy but for however long you and him have been official (i want the reader to feel the bitterness here) you have completely rearranged your schedule to fit better with his (he night shift) so you dont really sleep well or at all sunday-tues or saturday-tues. one of your main concerns is his health and his sleep (ig bc youre an idiot cancer rising with a cancer venus and this is a person you’ve known basically your whole life!) and yes still you prioritize spending time with him. then it all kinda boils over when you guys had planned a date, and instead hung out with all of your friends again, and you didnt even have sex after, because oh yeah, that’s right! You haven’t had sex in like a few weeks at this point, and it makes you wonder a little bc there are some people you know who date and dont seem to have sex and he was like “at that point they’re aren’t even dating” what an interesting point for him to make! (what is so sick and awful about all of this is that you are still so in love with him and the insane part of your brain is hoping and wishing that he will say something to fix it so you be something again, even though you understand that that wont ever happen.) fuck. so a few days after this you’re kinda like, i need to bring these things up, mainly “it feels like we’re just friends who fuck sometimes” and that frankly isn’t what you wanted out of this. you’ve been in love with him this whole time and it feels like he’s not as all in.

your talk appears to go good, he hugs you and thanks you for telling him how you feel so ig it’s fine then right? obviously no sex, and (fuck it, you also stopped watching tv together bc most of the time you spent together was with you alseep. how the fuck did you not see this coming) you go on with your week as normal and you make more of an effort to talk to him-even though you have been the one making the effort lmao. sunday night is normal movie night activity with all of your friends, drag competition for Tod’s bday (your bestfriend) and it’s fun and you tell him that you’ll stay up to play Fallout (trademark) bc youre almost done. everyone leaves, you beat the game. say one last i love you and go to bed while he stays up. the next morning seems normal, you get ready in the dark bc he’s asleep and you don’t want to wake him up, and you try to wake him up to have him maybe walk you out to your car but he doesn’t move so you kiss him on the head and go out through the garage. (fuck youre not gonna get to see that dog ever again. missing you puppy this is a nightmare and awful and you feel sick)

computer is fighting you at work but when he texts you at like three you head over to see him. you feel fine and regular and have to make a call for your mom and stuff so when you get over you dont really look up to see him bc youre doing something else. you dont take off your shoes because he immediately walks back to his room and clothes the dorr, leaving the dog outside. youre really in for it now. you sit down on the floor and he sits on the bed because you dont want to be right by him because you know he is going to say something that will hurt you, you keep your shoes on. he says the old “ive gotta talk to you” and then starts crying, and saying things like “ive been thinking about our talk and you were right, i haven’t been treating you right and it makes sense that you feel like were just friends who might sex” and you are so stupid and in love that you go up to comfort him and try to respond in the way that you think is appropriate, like it’s okay, we can figure this out and work on it etc., then he says “no, you don’t get it, that’s how i feel. i haven’t felt romantic feelings for you in awhile.” oh. okay. he fucking tells you you’re perfect and honestly kinda begs to still be friends, he does at least say you dont need to be friends right away (no fucking shit).

you comfort him (while he is breaking up with you) and then leave. you grab the stuffed cat you’ve kept over there, and your backup crochet and cross stitch projects, and your toothbrush, and your soap. and you try to leave. at the front door he says “i’ll see you again right?” and you say sure but the only thing youre thinking about is leaving and never looking at him again. he is like “I can hug you” and you let him do a mormon ass side hug because youre in shock (couldnt he have broken up with you last week?)

you get out to your car and start crying immediately because this is exactly what you didn’t want to happen. when you first told him about your feelings you fucking gave him an out. you told him mostly about the scorpio stuff and kinda the taurus. obv not all the way because those situations only make you look stupid, but ig it doesnt matter now because for the third time, youve been the fucker upper of another friendship because you got feelings. it’s kinda like youre the nice guy but not really bc you dont make friends with men because youre attracted to them. whatever. it just makes you think about when you talked about buying a house and you told him that you didnt have to be on the deed or anything, just in case and he said no, i’d want you on it, and you replied “you really want to be stuck with me forever?” and he said yes.

Youre not as upset about him losing feelings for you as you are about the word “awhile” why couldnt he have told you right away? so that he wouldnt have to fucking katniss you and act like he loved and act like he was in love with you when he wasn’t? and then the fucking nerve to ask to be friends like maybe that softened the blow or something. you have been so in love with him the whole time that hearing him say that he wasn’t is part of what is making you feel so sick. you havent eaten really in the last three days, and you probably wont start anytime soon. you cant even drink water that much because you just cry it all out. so much of the time you spent away from him was time spent missing him and then he just doesnt love you. it almost makes you think that maybe he was never in love with you, and he was just afraid to tell you because he didn’t want to lose you as a friend (even though you gave him a fucking out) well. there goes almost 18 years!

so, if this hypothetical situation happened to you, what would you do? would you aim to get famous so that you doing a cover of Silver Springs (Miss Stevie Nicks) would go really insanely viral or something and maybe it would be the only thing he could hear? or something else?

Hypothetically speaking, you’ve always been wrong

let’s say that a close friend’s mother sets you up on a blind date with a guy. and you text a bit for a few days before to kinda get to know him. and youre nervous about the date (you both show up early) and you get your favorite pizza and walk around a big box craft store and look at Halloween decorations (your favorite activity to be certain) and then you sit with him in his car for a few hours and just talk. and it would have been great if it weren’t for those meddling kids (you, thinking about this one particular guy who has kinda always been in your life—roughly 77% of it) so as you make out with this poor guy who keeps telling you that you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, you’re not into it. On the way home from this date you still can’t put your finger on exactly what the problem is. On paper, the guy checked most of the boxes, and he wasn’t that bad to hang out with. So of course you call Tod. and it hits you, and it’s you clutching you’re steering wheel till your knuckles are white and it’s that scene of Cher in Clueless when she understands that she loves Josh (or basically the same thing in Emma obviously when she is like oh duh i love mr. Knightley) and it’s embarrassing because shouldn’t you have always known? well why would you? when your brain was full up with nonsense from Scorpio and Taurus who both had you on a line and liked it more than they would ever like you when you always had him.

Mostly, you think it’s because he always let you be yourself. you never had to play cool girl or hot girl or any other type of girl in front of him because he just liked the youness about you. the other two didn’t necessarily dislike that about you, but they still would have never let you really be free, like they wouldnt have grabbed your water bottle in the middle of sex because you said you were thirsty or they wouldn’t laugh at your imitation sexy voice talking about legos and dnd. At least not in the way the he does. oh how crazy you feel to notate him in italics when everyone else gets some kind of realish name. there just isn’t one thing about him that you could label him as. He has always known you as yourself. and he has never thought you were too much.

and there is no weirdness when you finally tell him that you like him. it’s the monday after the date (a wednesday) and the whole weekend it’s all you can think about. you’re shocked that you haven’t talked yourself out of telling him. and on sunday night, after your friends leave the freak out sets in. monday morning you tell all your coworkers and your friend gives you a tarot reading and it will go good. and you dont have to keep imagining going into his room barefoot and leaving immediately after and slipping into your weird as flip flops as you flee. when you get to his place you pet the dog (a very cutie pants guy) and steel yourself for what you must do. you gossip and make a bad segue into having a crush on him and you hide your face with your hands (like that will stop him from seeing you) and your heart is in your stomach and he says he’s into you too and he has been for a while and you make a date (obviously Red Robin) then you leave. mostly because you’re freaking out and now everything is different but still the same and it’s scary and exciting and all you have ever really wanted. it could be said that a part of you knew this would happen. when you first got back into constant contact during the pandemic. and you had done a tarot reading that had the six of cups (and every other reading you did about him had the card, up to the one your friend gave you before you told him) and of course it had that because you guys are kind of that, young and older together.

you go to the same big box store that you went to with your date with your mom and brother and you dont really remember what you talked about because you were feeling really weird. it’s all you can talk about to anyone who will listen the next few days, except you can’t bring yourself to text him because you feel like it’ll be too much or you’ll seem too clingy or something. but finally it’s the next monday and he’s coming to get you from your place to take you on a real date and now everything is real and you skipped work and did homework because you were freaking out and couldn’t get anything done anywhere but home. and so he arrives, and he’s brought you flowers, and it takes your breath away a little bit because how has this happened and when did things get good like this? you’re both so nervous that you don’t finish your dinner and he doesn’t finish his dessert. and you talk to him in his car in the parking lot, but the teenager working at the yogurt place can see you guys (you think, but probably you just couldnt sit there with moving anymore) and so he starts to drive you home. and you tell him all this stuff that’s been rattling around in your head bout how you’re so freaked and you care about him so much that you can’t stand the thought that you could hurt him and you’ve never managed to date anybody long term and you just don’t have a lot of experience with a lot of things and you don’t want him to be disappointed in you and basically there’s a moment where he grabs your hand. and you stop. and it’s just that moment. with the two of you in his car, the radio silent, and your hand in his. and that’s the moment that you know you love him.

oh god, but how can you say that you love him? how do you know? you dont know anything really. but in that moment, you feel everything and you kind of understand. and then yall makeout in your driveway lmao. and you pick up two friends to tell them about the date went and to tell them that he told you he was “serious about you” and that he cares about you a lot and all of these things that made you shriek in your car when you thought about it. because how were you so lucky? and still you think that maybe something can go wrong or something will stop this from being great, but the next day when it’s still real, and the day after that, and the day after that, you get it.

there really isn’t any need for advice because everything seems to be happening the way that it should be. and you’re grateful.