It's been a year since you came into my life and broke me, but I felt like these words needed to be said. You might not ever read them but I have to put them out there.

You showed me how it felt to be loved and then how it didn’t. You showed me how I should be treated and then how I definitely shouldn’t. I’m really big on leaving things better than I find them; I think that’s what my parents taught me growing up. You pick something up, you put it back where you found it and in the condition you found it. And if you can put it back in better condition, always do that. I feel that way about people too. You leave a mark on every person you meet, whether that be good or bad, but you should always aim for good. You did not leave me the way you found me. You left me hurt, broken and you have tainted my idea of what I thought love was. You did not leave me better than how you found me. I put trust in you, gave you my heart, and you were reckless with it. Very reckless. And you didn’t handle it with care.

I was so careful with yours. Careful not to hurt you because I knew you were hurt. Careful to not be reckless because I respected you. I genuinely fell for you. I opened up to you about things I never have before with someone because I thought I could trust you. I continued to trust you even when you lied to my face. Now, I question everything you ever said to me because I don’t know what was a lie and what was the truth. I didn’t want to end up hating you because I have loved you since the day I met you. I want nothing but for you to be happy, but I do not love you anymore. You have made it easy to hate you and, unfortunately, I do. But it’s not because you’re a terrible person because you aren’t. I believe you have some good qualities, you showed me them. Hating you is so much easier than loving you.

You came into my life when I was so good without you. I was happy. But you came in and you made me feel loved, appreciated. You made me feel safe. I made you a place where I thought I was safe; you began to feel like home. Everything that I wanted in someone, you had. My family loved you. My mom still does. She shouldn’t. But she has so much respect for your mother that she thinks you must be a good guy. And, you know, I almost didn’t open to her about it because I was trying to protect her image of you, and for what? I knew I loved you when I defended the ways you hurt me. I still to this day speak kindly of you when you have given me every damn reason not to. I can’t tell you how much it hurt to catch you in a lie that night. I had put so much trust in you and you made me look stupid. I still put trust into you because I wanted to believe in you. I wanted to believe that you cared about me, and that the only reason you acted like this was because you were messed up so fucking bad that you didn’t know how to love me the way I deserved to be loved. But even then, there is no excuse for the way you treated me. By lying to me, you decided that I wasn’t worthy of the truth. And why is that? I never gave you a reason to lie to me. I let you do whatever you wanted to do. If anything, I thought that honesty would be super important to you. I thought you would have a hard time trusting me because of your previous relationship. Never did I think that I would be the one that would be struggling to trust you.

You have made me feel so stupid. For trusting you. For loving you. You must feel so good. You apologized to make yourself feel better but your guilt means nothing to me. It doesn’t take away any of the pain that you caused me. It doesn’t change the fact that I would drink just to forget your name because it would numb the pain for just a little bit. It doesn’t change the fact that I would take three showers a day just so my family wouldn’t see me cry over someone who didn’t care. And I’m sad because the memories we made meant something to me. Those truck rides with you were my favorite part of being with you. Talking, sharing music. Just having that time with you. You’re the only person I really have ever felt so comfortable with. You became my best friend. How funny, 'cause I definitely wasn’t that for you. But I thought I was. If anything out of all this, I miss your companionship. I miss being able to talk about anything with you. You made me feel smart, you made me feel validated like my thoughts mattered.

I hate that every place that was once mine is now stained with memories of you. Even my dorm. Even my favorite band. Can’t listen to my favorite song anymore because you sang it to me and you were going to learn it on the guitar and you picked me up and played it to me and it became our song. And now I hear those lyrics and it just reminds me of everything that didn’t work out.A part of me knew you weren’t ready but part of me was hoping that I would be enough for you and that in time you would be ready for me completely. That if I loved you enough, cherished you enough that it would be enough. I thought that the more I gave, the more I cared, the more I loved that you would start to do the same, feel the same, give the same. You didn’t but I was hopeful. But you thought we were fine at the pace we were going so, of course, I fell for you so quickly. So damn quickly. But I fell for you a very long time ago and you knew that. You said you saw us having a long future together. Then we were talking and everything was good and about two weeks in honestly my feelings vanished completely and I never told you that but if I would’ve known then what I know now then I would have let you go then but I saw you again and I got butterflies in my chest and everything felt electric and I believe that’s how love feels. Then one night we were talking on the phone and I expressed to you that the talking phase scares me because you can just get up and leave me whenever you wanted to and you told me that you wouldn’t ever do that to me because you know how that feels and you didn’t want to hurt me but that’s exactly what you did to me.

I could have loved you with my whole heart had you given me the chance but now I’m glad I didn’t. Because you’re not deserving of it. I know I have so much to give and I know that you saw that. And I want to believe that you’re sorry and that you care but I just don’t think that’s true anymore. And that hurts too because I don’t want to care about you if you don’t care about me. I don’t want to think about you, I don’t want to feel for you. And now I am so cautious. I am so scared of falling and I don’t do anything half-assed so when I chose you it’s because you made me feel like you were the one to choose. You broke me and I didn’t even think I could be broken. I thought I knew who I was and I thought that I could be happy without a guy and I thought I was strong.

I have so much anger towards you but I am going to use that anger and turn it into something beautiful. I am going to use that anger as motivation to better myself, to make myself great so the next guy I fall in love with can’t even imagine getting up and leaving me and not looking back. But the next guy I fall in love with won’t be a coward either. I hope you realize that I am the best thing that has never been yours and that you made a grand mistake and by the time you finally think that enough time has passed and we might be able to try again, it will be way too late and you will have missed your chance. I know my worth now and you come nowhere close to being anything I deserve because I deserve so much more than you ever gave me.