When I learned that you have someone else other than me, I knew then that you were not coming back. That the chance of me ever seeing your face again went from a slim 25% to 2%. When I learned that there is now a little chance of having you in my life, I wish your goodbye was a little kinder. I wish it didn't sting that much.
I can only wish you walked away without breaking me.
It took so much to stop hoping, did you know that? It took me more than 366 days to understand the part where you left and that it wasn't my fault either. I remember how I play pretend of what I would do just in case one day, you're at my front door apologizing for all the bad decisions you have made that affected me. I still remember trying to check the small window in my room just in case your car is already back at the garage. I remember crossing out days on the calendar as if you were someone who was just having a vacation in another country. I remember hoping and I remember how that feeling sucks.
I did it though, or so I think. I think I have let go of you. I stopped checking my phone's notification and I have stopped checking if there was any unknown sender on my messages. I stopped imagining you at my doorstep. I told myself the hoping should stop—that even though sometimes, in the quiet, I still know I miss you. I tried telling myself I am done with you—out loud, as if a mantra that I have to force myself to believe.
I walk forward now. There are days where I miss the version of me who believed in you and in marriage. Did you know that a part of me always glances behind—checking, just in case the little kid in me is still at the door you gently closed as you walked towards your son from a woman I didn’t recognize as mom?
Dad, you left and came back, but why does it feel like you never did?