Page 17 of Love Harder

Nothing…

Over a week had passed and Ghost was just that. My heart was broken. But I couldn’t give up.

Hi. Here’s your daily reminder that you’re incredible and that I want to hug and kiss you. I’m here, and I still stand by everything I’ve said to you. I hope you’re okay. I miss you x

I may as well have screamed into an abyss because my texts were delivered but never read.

I don’t know how many tears I cried over him. I just know the pain is just as raw. I was worried he had done something awful, that perhaps his depression had conquered him in the worst possible way.

But now, I see that Ghost was a selfish motherfucker who could have answered ANY of these messages. But he chose to ignore me. And now that I can see that, I’m angry at myself for chasing him when he didn’t deserve a second thought.

Bunny also reached out because she was worried. She too was ignored.

This was bad. So bad that the hole in my chest grew every single day. Ghost leaving ripped open a wound far bigger than the one he helped heal because I was angry with myself for letting him in.

How could I have been so stupid?

There was no activity on his socials, and I was worried. I thought perhaps he was in his cave recharging his batteries just as he said he did at times, so I waited…for weeks.

Those weeks, I ran the most I’ve ever run in my entire life. It was all I could do to make myself feel remotely better. The more pain I was in, the better I felt. The pain made me feel something other than being numb. It felt as though I was running away from my problems, but no matter how far I ran, they always caught up to me.

I was broken once again, but this time, I didn’t think I would heal. And truth be told, I still haven’t healed.

I often wonder when this sadness will go away. It only seems to grow. Each time I open my heart up and love, I leave a piece of myself with the one who breaks me. Now, I feel like I’ll never heal. I’m just learning to live with all these missing pieces because I refuse to give up.

I’m too stubborn to.

I don’t know why I keep going back to love. As a child, we learn not to touch something hot or it’ll burn. Why, as an adult, do we keep going back to the one thing that burns us over and over again?

No matter how many times I tell myself this is the last time, I find myself in the same predicament, clearly a glutton for punishment. I suppose the high I get from being “in love” is the reason I don’t learn. Or maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic wishing to believe it’s different this time.

Love has given, but it’s also taken so much.

When will it stop? When will I find that person who will love me as much as I love them? I have love to give…but no one to give it to.

Then something happened…he viewed a story.

When I saw his name, I had to sit down. That was how badly he affected me. He didn’t make contact, but he was alive. That’s all I cared about.

There was silence for another week.

I didn’t reach out. I couldn’t. I needed to give him time because I didn’t know what he experienced. So again, I waited…the most impatient person waiting for the man she wanted to come back to her and explain what went wrong.

What a fucking fool I was.

A week later, he viewed another story.

The same thing happened the next day.

And the day after that.

Yet no contact. He was watching me from afar. Tormenting me with his fucking screen name. I was a mess. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t think. I simply waited for Ghost to return.

But he never did.

He chose to be a fucking coward instead when he unfollowed me on my socials and removed me as a friend.

I am not a social media fan, but this one, this stung.

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