I'm finding it so hard to put pen to paper.

I've spent the last 7 months staring at the ceiling, trying (and failing) to find the words I want to say;

The words I need to say.

I've started this letter so many times (and somehow it's become this almost-poem),

And honestly, you'll probably never see it. You'll never know I had something to tell you.

I've thought about actually talking to you, but I didn't know how or when

And I really didn't want to make things awkward (again).

.

So, this is it.

Here it is:

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I was a coward and ended it through a text message and a "we can still be friends" because I couldn't bear to do it in person and I didn't want you gone from my life.

I'm sorry that everything was weird for six straight months afterwards because I didn't have the time to think about what we were now (and you were probably sad, but I honestly have no idea how badly I hurt you, because I didn't see you for two weeks after it, and then I was so busy trying to survive the first half of my senior year that I couldn't pay attention to myself, much less you)

I'm sorry that, when you asked me after those six months what it was that you had done wrong, I gave you the "it's not you, it was me" speech (even though it's completely true).

I hadn't had time to figure out what I wanted during those six months. I hadn't had time to feel anything.

By the time I figured out that I had hurt myself, too

It was too late. You had moved on.

Rachel or Rebecca or whatever (I have no idea what her name even was, and I hated her anyways)

I was so wrong to end it when I had.

I'm sorry and I regret it.

But honestly, I was terrified of what I was feeling.

I didn't know what any of it meant.

I was always nervous around you and I started having these flash-forwards of us married with kids

I was scared of what those meant, because I had never been able to successfully envision myself married to anyone.

I had never felt that way about anyone.

.

But do you know what I'm most sorry about?

I'm sorry that what's-her-name just started to ignore you until you got the message.

I'm sorry that, for whatever reason, you would have preferred for me to have done that too.

But I'm not what's-her-name. I'm me. And I cared enough to know that I couldn't ever do that.

Not to you.

.

The worst part of this story is that one day, I made a choice.

I decided that one night when you were giving me a lift home from our friend's house (because you could never say no) I would tell you.

I would find a way to say that I was sorry and that I'd figured it out and I wanted to give it another shot.

I was going to ask for another chance.

We were almost normal again and I was going to risk it all over again.

But before I could, you offered someone else a ride home, too. And no matter how much I insisted that you should take her home first, you insisted just as much that it would be faster to take me home first.

I ended up in the back seat and was pretty much ignored the whole way there.

I wanted to ask you to get out of the car so I could talk to you. But I didn't have that kind of courage. Not in front of someone else who was clearly so much more important than I was.

I found out later that you were working up the nerve to ask her out.

.

It's been at least six months since then.

I eventually got past hating her. I started seeing that she wasn't as bad for you as I thought (though she still told me at the presentations that she wasn't going to yours because she didn't care about your project. It wasn't interesting enough. So that was why I decided to go.)

.

Two days ago, I decided to text you out of the blue. It's been a month since we talked at all.
(Did you text her as much as you texted me those days you were in South Carolina? Did you send her pictures of the shells you collected and descriptions of the highways? If you did, did she care?)

You're moving to the other side of the country to start college in four days.

I just had one thing I wanted to ask.

So i did

i asked how you were going to handle being so far away from her. i asked if you were staying together at all.

i asked a really stupid question

and the answer

broke

my heart.

AGAIN.