Drafts that should stay as drafts

 I have a question for her, actually I have many questions for her. My main one, if I ever get to ask her, is did she love him? Not in the same way you love a place, food or a song. In the unconditional way. How could she, if she needed to find the feeling within someone else, did she ever sit with it after and realise her mistake? was it even a mistake in her eyes? It could've been a way to prove a point for him to come back to her in the way she always hoped. It is not my place know. Yet I want to scream at her "why did you do it?" I would say in anger. "Why did you hurt him and take his spark away, why did you leave him broken and confused as to why he wasn't enough for you to stay." Because from the first day I met him I knew how amazing he was and I knew he deserved more than I could ever offer . Yet she thinks she's worthy to have him back in her life? Did she ever lay awake trying to shake the guilt, or did she get on with her life knowing they were always going to find their way back to one another?

Where does that leave me? I know she could never love him in the way I did, because I could never betray him. Not in the way she did. Yet I am the one who was caught in the middle. colleterial damage. That was all I was. There is no reward in sticking by someone who does not know what they want, being the shoulder to lay on as he reminisced on the moments they had. Celebrating with him the goals he did not realise he could reach. Yes he may have never been mine to keep but I still loved him in the ways she did not. How is it fair that he still chose her? He kept reassuring me it would never happen. Stupidly, I believed him. Trusted it could not be true.

Here I am. 3am. Her page on my phone, his comments underneath. Tears freely falling from my bloodshot eyes, my breathing becoming heavier like I had just ran a marathon. My head sinking further into the pillow, wishing it was the ocean instead. The questions flooding my brain. The anger coursing through my veins. Sleep. It is just a bad dream, I told myself. Sleep never came. Only thoughts. 

Then. The realisation. It never mattered. No matter how hard I tried, how much I fought. I could never replace the feelings he would always have for her. I could never make him feel the way she did. I come to the conclusion, she probably apologised and said it would never happen again and he took her back without hesitation. Leaving me here to figure out what went wrong. That's the thing, nothing was ever wrong because it wasn't real. There was nothing I could do but just stand there and let the water hit my face. Feeling helpless to the way everything quietly crumbled around me. 

Anyone would have said "look at that fool, falling for a man that was never hers in the first place" 

Sitting on the cold floor of the shower and I silently let all the memories consume me. Feeling his hands snake around my waist pulling me in, gently laying a kiss on my lips as he lays us down on the bed. Never letting me open a door, carrying me when I was tired. Things I didn't think I ever deserved. I didn't. They weren't actions for my sake, but for his. Days out in the city contrasting those in the country, the hours spent talking and laughing. All for nothing. 

No it was for something, for her. I was just an experiment, to see if I could fill the empty void she left in his heart. Like a fool I had thought I had finally found what I was missing. He thought it was a way to let out the anger and pain of her leaving. I still stayed. I waited. For him to come back and say he was wrong and that he made a mistake and it was me he wanted. How circular that would be, me in the position he was in the year she left. Instead I sat looking at the phone, scrolling for an answer he would never give me. 

All the letters, the words on the page, re reading them over and over till the image is burned deep in my mind. I was so blind to read them in the way I did, to cherish what was never mine in the first place. He was using it as a way to practice to confess to her. To tell her he always loved her and that I was a way to prove that. 

Never realising the love I had for him. That I will always have for him. She makes him happy and he still lights up talking about her. I can only hope that one day I will find that within someone. The unconditional. 

I wish I could ask him. Did you think about me when you followed her? You say you know I am strong yet you sat there and sent what you sent, surely you would know that it would hurt someone. Even if you considered me a friend you would give me a heads up but I know it was because you never valued or considered that I was a person. Just the same as you won't care if you read this, so why would it matter if I sent the letter or text. If you saw me in the street you would simply walk past as we may have done many times. It would be like I never existed in your time line. The way you always planned. 

So as I sit on the edge of the cliff and look out to the waves crashing into the rocks below. I smile. Knowing I did everything I could. I was true to myself. I loved you.

So I let go. 

Of the pain. Anger. Happiness. Everything. You and I. 

I let myself embrace the grass and dirt underneath me and realise there is so much I have left to do and see and I cannot wait to meet new people and build something real with someone who wants me, for me. 

"I wish you both the best" I whisper to myself as I get up and walk up back to the beach house that is softly glowing in the distance. Calling out to me like a lighthouse to the sea, begging for me to refuge into the safety of it's walls. I wipe the streaming tears with a natural smile and then I laugh hysterically as I collapse onto the field by the building I called home. The sweet smelling grass cushioning my fall, I lay staring at the twinkling balls of gas in the sky.

How could I let this happen again... 

(This is a little snippet from my book "I told the stars about you")