Hey K,
It’s fitting that this is the third letter I’ve written to you, and it’s been exactly a month since my last one. My thoughts on you have changed over the past month. In fact, they have gotten more negative, but perhaps in retrospect, they have become clearer too. I do not want to be with you. I do not even want to be friends with you. I want you out of my life forever, to sever our connection and to never again see your Discord name, TIA, with its glaring green signal, taunting me from the side panel of Discord.

I wish I hadn’t met your parents. I wish I hadn’t had that dangling carrot of a thought that they could be my parents-in-law, that they really wanted that for us, that they liked me so much that they came to the dance show just to see me. To meet my family. I wish I didn’t have that desire of your mom’s that I failed to live up to, that dream of hers that she’d live to see her sons marry Christian women; I wish I hadn’t pictured myself as that woman and I wish I didn’t have to bear the guilt of setting an ultimatum that we’re done, we’re over, and we’re not getting back together, no matter how much your mom wants us to and thinks we will. I wish I didn’t have that terrifying fear that your mom will die, and if she ever thinks of me on her deathbed she will say that she wished you were marrying me. I know it sounds silly, but I have that fear because it happened to my mom; my mom’s ex’s mom told my mom that she wished her son (my mom’s ex) was marrying her and not someone else. Like, ouch!

I wish I could say that I hate you, but that really isn’t true. Even looking back on those things you said to me, those things that ended up being lies about us being friends and whatnot, that abrasion of trust that you don’t even want me to care about you, I realize it came from a place of sincerity. I realize you wanted to be friends. You weren’t making that up, putting some gauze on the wound to pacify it, make it seem not so bad. You overestimated yourself, and I suppose I overestimated you too. So while I am angry at you for your lies and your foolishness and for being an asshole that I should be thankful I’m not stuck with, I don’t hate you.

Really, I can’t hate you because I know you saved my life. This isn’t a new revelation to me or to you; I told you after the breakup, that your love wasn’t a waste and won’t ever be a waste, but I wish that your love was a waste. I wish I could write you off as a mistake. I wish I could look back and say, “Yes, there were red flags, and I shouldn’t have ignored those, and we never really should have been together”… but in all truthfulness I can’t say that because I know the place I was in before we started dating, and I was convinced nothing was going to pull me out of that. Loyal, supportive friends who would do anything for me and hated to see me in pain didn’t rescue me the way dating you did. Church didn’t. My family didn’t. I want to say God worked through you when I needed a large dose of more help than I was getting, but I’ll say so with a hint of skepticism because I’ve learned to refrain from stating anything as pure fact.

But despite that, I still am angry at you. I kind of want you to suffer. Serves you right, I say. You’ve turned your back on God and on me and some temporary pain might do you a favor. I sincerely hope that you don’t find another girl for a long time because you’re too immature for that. It is sick and sadistic for me to say that, and I apologize, because in the long run, I probably don’t mean it. While we were dating, I wanted to be the best for you that I could. After we broke up, I wanted the best for you, even if that meant not being together. I think I still want that for you, someday, but dang it, K, you frustrate me. In the words of Keane, “I hope you find your way back someday.” And by that, I don’t mean back to me. We’re over. I mean that I hope you find your way back to a good path and that you get your priorities straight.

I guess this wasn’t a very good letter, so I’ll end it unpleasantly, in a similar fashion to the way you shut me out back in May: I am not okay at all but I am not your problem anymore. If anything, I hope you see me struggling and feel bad about it, a little bit, but I won’t let you do anything about that, because I am not your “honey” anymore.

Goodbye, K.

Sincerely, Me