Dearest Audrey,

It’s only been 2 weeks since we broke up, and nearly 2 months since our fallout started. 3 years, 5 months, and 21 days. All gone. All over. I thought that if I broke things off, I would take a higher ground of some sort, yet here I am still sulking, recovering from an attempt to take my own life. A snide comment on your part and a poor reaction on mine: that’s all it took to trigger all of this. But maybe it’s been brewing inside of you this whole time, and I failed to see the signs. At any rate, I’m sorry. You were worried that you’d always be the bad guy. Maybe that’s why I broke it off. So that if anybody has to be the bad guy, let it be me.

You wanted to find yourself. To love yourself. “The more I love you, the more I hate myself.” These words still haunt me to this very day, and will continue to do so for a while. Had our relationship reached a point so bad that you felt that you didn’t even love yourself anymore?

Why didn’t you tell me sooner? We could have found a way to make things better. Did you really have to put me through the storm the way you did? Did you really have to hold the relationship hostage just to get what you want?
Did the time we spent no longer mean anything?

Everything still reminds me if you. Every happy memory we had randomly comes in, and I feel myself filled with sadness. I miss waking up beside you. I miss our adventures. I miss how you’d fall asleep so easily. I miss the nights when we’d make sweet love. I miss everything. I miss you. What hurts me is that all of these are now just memories. Memories that I hope will fade over time and will no longer hurt.

What hurts me most, though, is seeing what you’ve become in pursuit of the self-love you seek. You’ve pushed away people who only wanted to reach out and let you know they had your back. You were a sweet, caring, and kind woman who’d stand by the people she cares about. Now you’ve become an apathetic, arrogant, cowardly, defensive and narrow-minded, selfish girl who thinks that only her view of the world is correct, and that others should just adhere. Or maybe you’re just like that to me.

At this point I’ve already accepted that the relationship is over. The grief I feel now is more akin to that of death. In many ways, the Audrey I was with for nearly four years died, and was replaced by this empty shell. Distorted and unrecognizable. Maybe it will be easier for me to pretend that you died, than face the fact that you’ve changed

I guess what I’m afraid of is that when you’ve fixed yourself up, you’ll offer the best of you to someone else. A new face who hasn’t seen you at your worst, or hasn’t been there in the many milestones of your life. And I’ll just be that distant memory.

The point of view I was sharing was built from multiple failures, setbacks, disappointments, and grief, coupled with the wisdom and experience of older and wiser men and women. My only hope now is that you don’t have to go through the same hell I did to learn. I still love you, and it is for this reason that I’m calling you out.

Maybe one day we can have another chance. But if that day doesn’t come… then stay where you belong: in my memories. Memories which I hope will eventually fade into obscurity.

Regards,

Mr. Chemist