You stayed with me when I moved out of my old house and into the new one. Both addresses still live in the back of your mind where we pile up the information that we might one day need– or in your case, the information that used to be important but no longer matters. You helped me paint the walls of my room, and now you are not here to paint over the marks left behind by the tape I used to hang our pictures. The pictures that are now buried somewhere in my trash can. When I finally removed them from my room, the walls cried as if missing your closure. Every night, I fill your side of the bed with six stuffed animals and two pillows, then maybe they will be enough to imitate the warmth of your body: but they never are. When I turn around to find you after a nightmare, no one cuddles me back. You knew my old car like the back of your hand, and you even drove my new one. You drove my car because you said you liked how it showed the speed on the windshield. “One day, I want Apple Play in my car too,” you said. You drove my father’s car because you wished to one day have your own sports car.

You stayed through my last year of high school and my first three years of college. For my high school graduation, you congratulated me, but you won’t be there in six months when I finally graduate college. The college I chose because of you, to be close to you. The first time you left me because you were going away to college, I begged you not to break up with me because I would be right there in less than a year. Now, I see that you have been running away from me since the beginning. You know the one thing everyone warns you not to do: choose where to live based on someone you love? Well, I never heard them because three years ago I could have sworn that you were my forever. I could have sworn that when it was your turn to choose me over the world, you would have done it. You had a choice to make, but you chose everything– but me. You weren’t there when I got my third tattoo because, again, you chose the world over me. You broke up with me, but then over a year later, I was by your side while you got your arm tattooed. You know why I was there? Because I begged you to stay with me. Now, looking back, it has always been the same: you running away and me chasing after you– both literally and metaphorically.

For once, I want to be the one being chased after. Perhaps it is wrong to think that because I want to be with someone with whom I don’t feel like running away. You were that to me, yet I was not the same to you. I was the girl you could easily replace after almost four years of dating. I was the girl that you only wanted when you felt like I was moving on too quick. You only chased after me when others weren’t enough for you. But now, maybe you are not enough for me. After years of chasing after you, I choose to one day be with someone who feels like home. Not like the home we rented that was only meant to last for a year– I don’t want a one-year lease; I want a forever home. With you, it feels like every couple of months or even years, you need to check out other places to understand that this home was enough. I had always been enough. Now, you are living in our apartment: our first home together. But I am not there, I wonder whether the pictures on the walls still are. Do they remind you of how happy we were? How happy we could have been?

I know you wanted to love me. I want to believe that every time we planned out our wedding it was because you loved me and not because you just craved the unconditional love I gave you. I think I know that you wanted to love me the same way I did you, but I also think you know that you will never be able to.