151.)
You lied to me. Not about something petty and inconsequential, like your age or your job. Not even about something slightly more pressing, like whether you were single or straight. You had me thinking you were an entirely different person, in the most basic sense. The connotations of everything you had ever told me or done for me changed drastically when the truth was finally revealed, but I still can’t find the capacity within myself to hate you for it. Or even to act reproachful for a short time. Doesn’t it make sense that I should have lost all faith and trust that I had in you? It was a big, big lie. But it didn’t change anything.
From the moment you revealed the truth, not only to me, but to everyone, I knew something strange had happened to me. Some light switch had been flicked on, and everything I had known and been so sure of had gone right out the window. Not because of how much your confession changed how I feel for you, but how much it didn’t. I still loved you. Hell, I still love you, even now that you have a significant other. Now that I know I’ll never have the chance to hold you, or kiss you, or tell you honestly that you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me and have you take it seriously. Because when I send you those texts at 3 AM because I can’t sleep and you know about my sleep deprivation like nobody else does because it’s one of the many things we share, those texts that say “I love you”, “I need you”, “I want you with me always”, I don’t mean as a friend.
I love my friends, but not the way I love you. I need my friends, but not as much as I need you. And I always want my friends with me, but if I were to lose you - you of all my friends - I would not be able to go on living. At least, not the way I do now. I am content with the way things are between us, because when I tell you a miss you, you tell me you miss me too and even if we go months without speaking, when we finally reconnect, it’s as if we’d never gone through any separation. But if you were to abandon me, or if you were to disappear, or if you were to, God forbid, die on me, I would be an empty shell of a woman. Because you are the biggest part of what makes me who I am today, and if you had never existed, surely I would not be the same soul.
