post script
I did quit.
I didn't last one week in that desk without you.
Now, I'm trying to put things together in my life again.
I promised I wouldn't call him anymore, and I haven't, not one single time. It's a promise you made me make, and I'm keeping it. Even if you'll never know.
I won't lie. I'm in a pretty bad place most of the time. I have bad dreams and think really dark thoughts. I am constantly restless and uncomfortable. There's an ache in my chest that won't go away. My heart hurts.
I'm treating it with a steady stream of too much alcohol. I know better. But it's the only thing that makes me stop thinking.
I decided to leave you alone for a while now. Let you take some time to get distance from all this; distance from me. But I can't really believe that I'll never see you again. That things will NEVER get better between us. When it starts to look that way, I go to a place I don't want to be. I can't handle it.
I don't know what I'm waiting for. Something to fix this or make me feel better. Nothing works. I don't know who you have in your life right now, or what they're doing. I'm hearing you're angry and hurting and making bad decisions.
Me too.
But I know I have someone protecting me from going too far. Someone who loves me and understands how I feel about you, and is there to listen to me cry at 4am. Even if that happens every other night (and it does). And if it weren't for him, I would be even worse than I feel now. I might be dead.
As much as it pains me to say it, I hope you don't need anyone like I need him right now. I hope you're getting over this.
I wish you would talk to me; listen to me; forgive me.
I've spent so many years being taught how to handle myself when people betray me. When someone knocks you down, how to stand back up. How to prepare for next time. How to be stronger and harder and colder.
What you've taught me--which I will never, ever, forget--is that if you spend all your time trying to make sure you have the upper hand, you can forget that you can turn just as easily as everyone who held that hand over you.
It's been almost 2 weeks since you quit. I have learned so much and changed so much, only because of your absence.
I told you I thought I could get rid of you. I told you I didn't want you around. I thought that I could teach you and help you make your life better, and all you could give me in return was to make me laugh and let me feel needed, if only for a moment. I didn't think you were contributing to me as a person. I didn't think you could change me.
I was wrong. About all of it. And you not being here, I realized all of that. I remember one moment, months ago, I said something to you--making fun of you or something--and you looked at me and sighed and said, "Sometimes I really wish you wouldn't do the things you think you need to do."
I didn't get it. And I don't know if you only meant that moment, but the bigger implications are all but lost upon me now. And I wish I had been smart enough to see what you could mean. Strong enough to be vulnerable without holding anything over you.
So what comes next?
I plan everything. I have contingency plans for my contingency plans. I always know what comes next. I'm the girl who never leaves the house without extra lip gloss, bandaids, a cell phone and her AAA card.
I know me. But I don't know how this ends.
Either I'll work this out, learn everything I possibly can from it, and become the kind of person you might love again, or I won't. And regardless of that, either you'll work past this with me and you'll let me back in your life, or you won't.
And I'm not ready for the "won't"s.