Almost Brooklyn

Half filled moving boxes and bubble wrap lay around my apartment. A maze I created unintentionally from the front door to my bed, weaving through little material reminders of a life we were going to share. Going in between “you need to fucking unpack these things” and “maybe we’ll work it out.” The items of mine you took with you to Brooklyn are already on their way back to me. I can’t pack up your PS4 I don’t use, I can’t bring your college diploma out of the back of my car, I can’t fold up the remainder of your clothes that sit on top of my dog’s crate.
I think about the girl you kissed a lot. I think about if you compared us. I think about if you felt excitement when your lips landed on a new pair for the first time in a year and half. Were your hands around her waist? Did you use too much tongue like you tend to do or hold off on french kissing? I wonder what your tone was when you both pulled apart and you told her you had a girlfriend. I wonder if you told her the “we’re having problems right now” line that you told the opera singer you had a crush on a few weeks prior. I think about the message you sent me two days before you kissed her that said “I don’t deserve you but I’m ready to fight for you, I love you.” I think about how I want to scream that at you until you break down and decide you do want to fight for me.
For the past week I’ve been replaying all of our memories, the cutesy couple ones, the heartbreaking ones, the ones when I truly felt in love with you, the ones when I questioned if I could do this anymore. Currently the ones I’m clinging to are the “you’re my person” memories. I can sometimes push away that aching pang in my chest if I think about when you told me the story of your friends that did long distance, then broke up, then got back together, and that you believed it can work that way. I can subside the pit in my stomach if I think about when you said “I can’t lose you” and “I want us to work someday.” I feel a regret towards the “yes” I muttered when you got on your knees and begged me to take you back after a break up in October. I can’t imagine being with you again, but I can’t imagine being without you either.
I’m currently going through the phase of deadpan stares into nothing while tears are right behind my eyelids, but won’t come out. I’ve cried about everything I can at this point. I’ve cried about losing the person I’ve loved the longest and deepest in my adult life. I’ve cried about you betraying my trust and cheating on me. I’ve cried while envisioning you fucking somebody else. I’ve cried about having to now refer to you as ‘my ex’. I’ve cried out of anger, out of being the reason you have the apartment you are living in right now and wishing I could take that back. I’ve cried the hardest because when I came up to see you in New York to make sure we were ready for this, you held me hard and told me ‘yes’. I’m crying right now because that was very realistically the last time I’ll ever see you, calling out of your apartment door to me as I got in the cab “I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU MICHELLE.” So I guess I can still cry about you.
You left me. You left me with a broken will and hurt heart. You left me with unraveling insecurities. You left me in Austin with all of the places we would go. You left me with the remains of us while you moved on to a new place where there’s no part of me there to haunt you.
I’ll move on. I’ll write a piece about moving on from you. I’ll be able to talk about you without biting the inside of my bottom lip and feeling like I’ve taken 10 steps backwards in trying to heal. The urge to text you everyday will disappear. I’ll move somewhere new, maybe New York, without hoping that I’ll run into you and we’ll get back together. I’ll be fine, I’ll even be happy. I’ll still play board games. I’ll still wear that red flannel. And even through it all, even when I stop wondering “what if,” and hoping we’ll fall in love again in some romantic way, I’ll still never hate you.
