dear mister heartbreaker:

i can imagine it, having a whole heart in my hands again.

i'm close to moving back to school, and amazingly enough, i haven't seen you once during the summer. it must be an amazing stroke of luck, or you and i both have the unconscious, uncanny ability to coordinate our visits. we time them carefully enough so none of us would accidentally run into each other. there was that one time we slipped, when i drove by and saw you in your car. but don't worry--i fixed it by ducking my head and pretending to text someone. you can thank me later when you're ready to face me.

i talked a lot of smack about you, you know. it was a culmination of everything you didn't do right. it didn't have to be wrong; it just had to be different. my pretty cousin told me that guys had reasons for their actions, only they were twisted and less coherent. i guess that was your logic at work when you decided that playing deaf and dumb was the best way to break up with me. it fucked me up for the longest time, and i held it close to my heart. you play in one of the most physically challenging sports, but your balls suddenly shrivel at the thought of confronting a girl about your feelings? pathetic. you say you don't want anything to happen to our friendship, and then you decide not to talk to me for four months? brilliant move. you tell me--but not face to face!--that you're not ready for anything, that it's not the right time, that you need to concentrate on school right now... and then pictures of you in some girl's face or getting high and red-eyed surface?

i sure as hell won't condemn you for whatever you've done. it's having a jolly good time, and if weed and kissing random girls are going to do it for you, then have fun. but i just wanted to let you know that i was fine. i was bloody fucking fine thinking you didn't care about me and you didn't want to talk to me and you moved on with your life so i could put myself together all on my own. i was doing a good job working the kinks out and making plans to move into my new apartment when, i don't know why, i decided maybe i was strong enough to contact you again. it was a last ditch effort in an attempt to try to salvage whatever was left of our friendship, and it was a way for me to clean my hands of you. if i just tried one more time, and you didn't respond, then i would know my answer. then my conscience would be clean, and it wouldn't keep whispering to me, "you're not trying hard enough."

i didn't expect you to reply.

but when you did, it was like a drop on a coaster. i threw that cell phone onto the bed and concentrated on putting together my desk, but of course i read it later; i took it in like a little kid with a handful of candy, and then i replied. maybe, maybe we could finally go back to talking again. but how silly of me to even think that, right? it was so stupid to expect a little conversation because god forbid that would be too much commitment for you, right?

and all the while, i wonder why you haven't gone public with your new girl, if that's really you in those pictures, why you lost so much weight, why you decided to take up weed, why you don't seem to see your old friends as much anymore, and so on. maybe you're reinventing yourself, changing after the college experience. i can accept that. but i can't accept all the bullshit you fed me when you (finally) broke it off, when you told me you weren't ready to date anyone. why couldn't you be honest?

someday i'm going to get a real answer out of you, not the padded bullshit you fed me that day. but for now, i just want to let you know that i'm almost there. with scotch tape and criss-crossing strings of goals to keep my head high, i'm ready to plunge back into my black and white world. of course, you and i know that it's never going to be two separate shades again, will it? it's never that simple, and i'm going to be waiting a while for you to return that last piece of my heart.

hey, at least you don't have all of it anymore.

with much regretted love,

me