I have to leave. I cannot stay in this place and risk seeing him. What courage I had has been utterly spent in ending this. I do not have the courage to see him yet. One day, soon enough, I will see him again. But not yet, not now. I cannot face him now and not give in. All my strength is gone and I cannot risk falling back into him. I cannot and will not be that woman, but I have to find my strength again before I see his face. So I will leave to face him another day.
It is so surreal, so easily deniable. I cannot quite face the whole of what has been taken from me. A year of my life was spent in him. I do not have a place or a day where some part of him does not linger. He has touched every moment for a year, and even his friendship goes back as far as two. I cannot comprehend having all those moments facing me yet. Even the smells of the seasons bring him to my mind. Certain smells, certain places, and certain faces all hold him. My life for a year was spent in him. My dreams, my life, revolved around this one man who somehow made me believe he was more. I never doubted him when he told me he was through. I never doubted; I defended him against others' doubts.
Was I wrong in trusting him so much? Even now I can't believe I was. No relationship can be built off anything less than trust. But, my trust in him has been broken. I could never trust in him again like before. When he used to hold me in his arms, somehow all my fear would disappear in his strength. He was so strong that nothing could touch me in that place. Those arms were such a comfort, and somehow they calmed me regardless of what anxiety I was having. His arms made me come alive. How could that ever be had again? It was my trust in him that created that safety. Now that trust has been broken and even if he wrapped me in his arms, those arms would not be the same. That place of protection has been torn by him.
I don't understand. This man who told me I was the woman he wanted to marry, lied to me by omission. This man who said he wanted to spend his life with me kept his secrets of another life he was trying to live. He feared to tell me for fear of losing me. Yet, he has lost me. How did he so deceive himself to believe that he could have both? Why did he believe that he was ready for this relationship, for marriage? How did he know me so little to not know that this would be the end result if he continued down that path? He knew me so little, thought me different than the woman I am, or he didn't care.
It doesn't matter at this point. He has shown me who he really is. He has proven how little I mean to him. I deserve better than such a lack of love, but even I write that it is no consolation. The facts do not ease the pain.
To believe in him so much, to trust him so, to see in the best of men, to have so much faith in the person I thought he was, only to be proven wrong has made me feel I have died. I feel as though my heart has been carved from my chest. I am hollow, I am empty.
Somehow I keep wishing all this will disappear. I feel trapped in that false hope that all of this will fade away to just him and me again. I am hiding from the pain. It leaves me wondering if the distance we have spent away from each other throughout the summer was beneficial to the present situation, or if it contributes to the denial. I'm so accustomed to not seeing him for long periods of time and I wonder if that face delays my acceptance of what has happened. Yet, on the other side I am fully aware that I would be even more in love with him then I already am if our times of separation had been spent together. Which is worse? To be unable to accept the reality of what has happened because there's no ground to put it in perspective, or to love this man more than who I already felt held all of me?
I still love him. Even in all my anger and hurt, I still love him. I can't just fall out of love. It would be so much easier if, through willing it, everything would just vanish. That I could no longer love him, that I would no longer feel this pain and emptiness. But, even as I write that, I know it's a lie because whether I knowingly put it there or not, I still have hope all the same. How can a love lost not hope to be regained? But, it can never be regained, not like it was, not with him.
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