To The One Who Played The Girlfriend Role To My Boyfriend – I Don’t Blame You
By Natalia Vela
I don’t blame you (anymore). I know how charming and dreamy he can be. It’s hard to resist his kiss when everything he says tastes like honey dripping down the edges of his lips. That’s how he is at the beginning, when your name is still fresh rolling off your tongue. I couldn’t resist him either.
I know how special he can make you feel, when he tells you things that he says he’s never shared with anyone. I know, because he shared them with me too, and told me I wasn’t like any other girl too; that he couldn’t ever quite open up.
And I know you were queen when he’d rest his hand at the small of your back. He’s never been one to hold hands in busy streets, but he held yours. He dropped the walls around his heart for you. And let you see the wounds healing and the ones still bleeding. He never let anyone in but he let you swim in everything his, because he had never felt this way. And you smiled when he told you that you were the only exception, the way I smiled when I heard it too. I can’t blame you. He has wooed me too; I’ve fallen deep in love with him too. He really can be sweet.
I am sorry, I am sure you walked away with ache too. I’m sure for a while his name was salt in your wound, and I’m sure it took some time for it to fizzle. But know that no matter how much he said he felt for you, and how much you wanted to ignore my existence, I existed.
No matter how much he said he wanted to end things with me, the fact is he didn’t, the fact is he was still with me. That time you spent playing role of girlfriend to someone else’s boyfriend, I spent not eating and fighting to leave my bed every morning, trying to count to fall asleep, instead of counting all the things about us that I missed. I know it’s not your fault, but I was real, I am real, and I know you felt wronged too when he came back to me, when he never really left, but I’ve been there, and if anyone was wronged here it was me.
But I know you’re not to blame.
He was the one that held my heart, and the one who let it go and let it drop to break underneath the bed you shared; the one on which he cheated on me with you.
That isn’t on you. It has never been on you.
You weren’t the one who laid another on all we built; it was all him. I know it broke your heart, too. I can only hope you’re out there smiling, healed and happy, like all of us girls deserve as queens. The truth is, I’m still working on it. I’ve been the wronged woman and I’ve been the other woman, and I don’t ever want to be either again. If you took anything from this, I hope it’s that. You hurt me too, but I have nothing to forgive and nothing to be angry at you for, because this has never been on you.