Things happen, life goes on!

When we first broke up over a stupid fight about me being late by an hour, I wasn't afraid about us getting back together. I was sure we would.  

He came after that and apologized almost crying at my doorstep. I do that to people. 

I am one smart girl that knows how to make people feel guilty for things and mistakes I make.

The second time it was more serious. It wasn’t just a stupid delay. It was something I did at his house.

I was supposed to meet the parents. I hesitated. I told him I thought it was too soon. I hurt his feelings.

I understood. I listened to him. I accepted the pause in our relationship that he proposed.

We needed some time alone to figure things out.

And you know what happens when a couple takes a pause?

Many things happen. But first of all … you grow apart.

The first day of that pause was normal. I went to the same stupid bar with my same judgmental friends and I drank the same bad coffee I used to drink all the time. I saw him and we said hi. I wasn’t sure if the friendly mood was supposed to be on but somehow it was.

We talked nonsense for three minutes and I got bored.

I left the bar and headed home.

The next couple of days were harder. I started having bad moments. I started crying and being emotional out of nowhere, mood swings.

The first phase: Denial.

I didn’t want a pause. I didn’t need one. He needed it.

I let my friends fill my head with stupid thoughts about how he was going to break up with me. About how all this was a scam so that he wouldn't hurt me. 

I was hurt already. I was vulnerable. I needed someone to understand me finally and tell me everything was going to be alright.

I didn’t seem to get that from my judgmental friends whose only intention was to make me feel even more miserable than I already was.

Long story short, time was passing.

It’d been like three months and he didn’t seem willing to call off the pause. I wasn’t allowed to call him or talk to him. 

Then one night all of a sudden while I was going home I heard a car. 

It drove next to me and suddenly it stopped. The door opened and I saw him.

My first thought was: "They were all wrong. He is going to call it off. He is going to ask me to be together again. He got over the stupid fight."

I was probably never more wrong in my life than that night.

He had a serious look on his face.

I wasn’t sure what to think.

And then he spoke. And everything I tried to hold onto went off the bridge… including me. 

Everything we built up till then, all the memories, … he drowned them without a blink.

“I am seeing someone else. I am sorry, it’s not you, it’s just…. ”

I didn’t hear a single word after that. I started running and I slammed the door of my house. 

I fell on the ground and I cried. I listened to our favorite song for 230 times in 3 days. 

I read my diary a million times, I’d been through all our pictures, I tried to remember every little detail while we were together and was still holding on to that. 

I wasn’t ready to let him go even though he actually left.

I just wanted to understand what went wrong. 

When did we fall apart?

I wasn’t able to find an explanation.

The only thing that seemed legit at that time was me chickening over that dinner with his family. 

But then it hit me. It wasn’t that. How could I expect anything more of him if he wasn’t ready to wait for me, if he didn’t even try to understand or make me change my mind?

What if that was the last piece of the puzzle he needed? And I gave it to him so easily. I didn’t fight much but he didn’t let me either so I guess we were even.

In what direction could that relationship go anyways?

We were doomed to fail since the beginning but I was too blind to see that.

Years passed and life went on.

The wounds of the past healed but the scars were here to remind me of what I survived.

I lost my faith in people, in men. I lost my contacts. I lost my friends. And it was funny and strange but I missed those judgmental bitches to make fun of me or just drink a coffee sitting next to me.

I moved on. Ghost of boyfriends past stopped following me. I left one part of me to die that night when I slammed the door. I didn’t want to save it. I just wanted to shut my emotions off because the only thing I was feeling was pain and remorse.

After all that time I changed, I grew up, I learned things about people but I didn’t learn to kill my weak spot nor how to hide it apparently.

I was strong and yet at the same time I could’ve fallen like a domino with one wrong step.

One night a guy started talking to me in the bar. The same old bar. Everything seemed to have changed though. I wasn’t feeling good there anymore. I was feeling nostalgic for a time that was long gone.

I tried to shut my thoughts out with drinking alcohol. It had helped me before.

Then he sat next to me and he took my hand and murmured my name. And there I was trapped again by my emotions. It was him. He apologized. I remember he gave a speech about how sorry he was and how life wasn’t good without me, how I was the love of his life… and so on… long speech and I drank more than enough to remember it all.

"Let’s get back together awakened me." 

I stood up, lifted my glass for a toast but instead I hit him in the face and disappeared.

I remember there was blood but I didn’t care. I left. Simple as that. As he once left me.

Then I came back and he was still sitting at the same spot as before with ice on his face and a tissue in his hands, drinking scotch. I appeared in front of him but he wasn’t surprised or scared, he was happy that I came back.

I didn’t say anything, or, if I did that was the alcohol in me talking.

I kissed him. I kissed him passionately, like in the movies. I didn’t feel anything. It was like kissing a stranger. Nothing happened. No sparkles, no butterflies, nothing.

I stopped and I looked him in the eye.

“One doesn’t simply show up after so many years to ask for another chance before evaluating, growing up, realizing one’s mistakes … before changing. You are the same person from years ago. You didn’t change a bit. Yes, I fell in love with you back then, but I’ve changed, and you can’t just come here and expect me to be the same dumb girl that let you hurt her, get to her heart and rip it apart, because I am not. I grew up and I learned my lesson. It can never be the same as it once was. You got to know that. 

Goodbye. Forever.”

I left that bar and I never came back there. I had 30 missed calls and not a single one from my mum. He called for I have no idea what.

I didn’t answer it. I ordered pizza and I watched the Notebook. All by myself. All alone.

I knew he was outside the door crying and desperately trying to explain me something. But I didn’t need an explanation anymore. The girl from that night, many years ago, did. She needed to know what the mistake was, not me.

I … I knew everything I was supposed to know.

I am strong … free … and there isn't anyone or anything that could change that.