You Have A New Girlfriend
By Anonymous
You have a new girlfriend.
I wonder if you will break her, like you broke me.
I don’t hate you anymore. I’m not sad anymore. I’m not upset or angry with you anymore.
It took me four years to finally walk away from you.
That’s how long it took for me to get over you. To realize how toxic you were. To forget you.
To be whole again.
I’ve never once looked back.
I’m stronger now. I know now that I deserve real, honest love. I will not accept anything less than that. Ever again.
But you still broke me once.
You have a new girlfriend.
I wonder if you take her out to dinner and buy her nice things. I wonder if you treat her with respect. I wonder if you remember to call her back. I wonder if you put her before the drugs.
I wonder if you treat her the way I longed to be treated. Four years of longing. Four years of disappointment.
You have a new girlfriend.
You took something from me that I’ll never get back. I don’t hate you anymore; hate has been replaced with disgust. Disgust at what you did to me. Disgust at that voice that will always be inside my head. Disgust at myself, and disgust at my own actions, too.
I thought I loved you. I was young, naive, innocent, and I thought I was in love. You were bad; toxic. I was in over my head.
And I was infatuated with everything about you. How badly I wanted you.
You have a new girlfriend.
You stole my innocence; it took me years to rebuild myself. To trust again.
But there will always be that voice inside my head.
You cheated on me. You lied to me. You hurt me. Time and time again. I didn’t know what love was; I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like. I kept going back to you. Time and time again.
I lied to everyone I loved because of you. I lied to my parents about where I was. I lied to my friends about why I had to leave. Most importantly, I lied to myself about what we had.
I would drop everything for you; do anything for you. My life was you. I was nothing without you. You were all I cared about. All I wanted.
You broke me.
Even when I moved away to college – you were there. You knew exactly how to get inside my head. You knew how to draw me back in and hurt me all over again.
Remember that one time you looked me in the eyes while we were having sex and said – I can’t tell when you orgasm. I blushed and pretended to laugh it off. Of course I orgasm, I told you.
I never once orgasmed with you. In the four years that we were “together”, I never once orgasmed. You did not make love to me. You did not care about me. You did not respect me.
You took my virginity from me. You didn’t make it special; you didn’t make love to me; you fucked me. I laid there – motionless, confused – you didn’t care. You wanted to finish. You weren’t a virgin. You’d had sex before. I made you hold out for eight whole months and all you wanted was to finish.
I never told anyone that before.
You broke me.
I went home that night and fell to my bedroom floor. I stayed there shaking for two hours. I didn’t know at the time. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know how wrong it was. How disgusting you were. So I went back to the only thing I knew – you.
You have a new girlfriend.
And I don’t hate you.
Do you respect her? Love her? Stay clean for her?
Mostly, I feel bad for her. I wish I could tell her to run; to run far, far away from you.
But then I remember how good things were at first. The love letter you wrote me. The cuddling and laughing. The bliss. The excitement. You were my best friend once. A long time ago.
And then you broke me. Please don’t break her, too.
Everyone around me saw me breaking. My parents couldn’t do anything. It was out of their control. They tried; I didn’t listen. My friends tried at first; my best friends tried until the day I stopped caring about you.
They all begged me to leave you, to forget you.
But no one could get through to me. I thought I loved you, didn’t they get it? Why couldn’t they understand?
You broke me. And you broke my parents too. You broke my friends and you even broke some of my friendships.
And I let you do it.
It wasn’t love.
It was an unhealthy obsession.
It was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting.
I’m happy now. Happier than I ever thought possible.
I look back and can’t believe that was my life for four years. Can’t believe I put up with that for four years. Can’t believe I lived my life like that for four years.
I can’t believe it took four years for the reality of my life to sink in.
I’m happy now.
But you still broke me once. Broke me time and time again.
Please don’t break her.