For the longest time, I've been used to having a strong support of people around me. In high school, I may not have been the most popular girl but I had a lot of friends whom I could count on in times of need. No, these are not fair-weather friends. I can say with absolute conviction that these friends are the people that would be in my life for a very long time.
These are the friends that you could visit anytime of the day and be welcomed home. These are the kind of friends who will lend a sympathetic ear and be expected to give you an honest opinion of everything about you. These are the friends that you could call at two in the morning just so you could rant about your school, your parents, or your lovelife.
I am a generally trusting person. I hate being cynical because I hate being bitter towards anybody. Most of all, I believe that there is good in everybody and there is a particular reason why anyone would do anybody wrong.Up until now, I cannot force myself to admit that I had poor character judgment because I pride myself in being a good reader of personality. I guess if it is a question of admitting faults, mine would simply be the fact that I trusted someone beyond any realm of reason, placed faith in one person unconditionally, and loved and respected someone like the older brother that I never had.
Call it blind faith or call it stupidity, but I really believed in him. I trusted him with my innermost feelings, emotions that I never dared to show to anyone else, thoughts that I can't bring myself to voice out even to my other closest friends. I bared my soul to him.
And for a time, he reciprocated everything I gave. He treated me like his younger sister, his little daughter. He spoiled me endlessly, taking me out for coffee, tutoring me in math, fetching me from school, and just spending time with me. My family was so comfortable around him that they let him stay until 2-3 in the morning, sleeping on the sofa.
It was one of those rare very close platonic relationships.
But we had our differences. I am the kind of person who is very vocal with my appreciation of someone else. I love telling the important people in my life how much I treasure them. He was more reserved and cool about everything. He hated displays of affection. He hated having to voice out what he feels and more often than not, I had to wheedle it out of him. That is not to say that I got satisfactory answers. He was always so cool and detached that he gave an unfeeling vibe.
Simply put, I sometimes felt taken for granted. I still understood him, though. I knew that he needed me. I felt as if he wanted me to stay. At that time, I was sure that he did.
Now, what he wants is anybody's guess.
I did not know what happened now would I possibly ever. A year has passed and I still don't know what prompted him to leave that day. I still have the barest idea of what I meant to him, if I ever did. Saying that I mattered would be pushing the matter too far.
Please do not think that I never asked. Please don't say that I never begged for him to come back. At first, I did everything that I could for him to tell me what was wrong, for him to make me understand the reasons behind his actions. No matter how much I racked my mind, I cannot find the answer to that just one question.
Why?
Little by little I accepted the fact that he was gone. I assumed a lot of things but that didn't mean that I never waited for him to turn around and still see me watching him, praying for him to just turn around, to just look back one last time. I longed for him to tell me goodbye, to just tell me that he cared for me, that he loved me like I loved him.
But, he never did. He just upped and left, never even sparing one backward glance. I was left torn and broken, alone and shattered.
There was the sun in my life, setting one last time, my eyes never to behold it again. There was the pillar of my strength, slowly seeping away, leaving me helpless and incapacitated.
For the first time in my life, amid all the wonderful people around me, I felt utterly alone.
I tried. I tried to get up and pull my self together. I tried to convince myself that I would be able to go on without him, that him leaving was just another bump in the road, one that I can go past without a hitch. But, despite all my efforts of trying to be happy, of trying to be a trooper and keep on marching, I just lost hope. A big part of me and my happiness went out the window when he left. He took with him an integral part of myself, one that I had a really hard time building again. There was simply no getting it back.
Everything just went downhill from there. I lost confidence in myself. I started to hate every single day that I woke up. I distanced myself from everybody. I alienated myself from the rest of the world because I really believed that I was alone.I know I hurt a lot of people along the way. I was a trainwreck waiting to explode. It was only a short time before my life completely crumbles right before my eyes. And I was too powerless to stop the snowball crashing down on me. My parents were shaken by my decisions. My friends felt outcast and unwanted. My family felt spurned. I enclosed myself within tight walls and turned away anyone who dared to scale my defenses.
To say that I am still hurt would be insufficient. This gaping hole inside of me is just too hard to fill. Everytime that I see his face behind my eyes, a surge of loneliness seems to rise up, tiding over my whole being. It's just so hard to see the people who love walk away from you. It hurts more when all you can do is watch and stare as everything that you believed in an anchored to for years crumbles right at your feet.
Do you have any idea how it feels when I see your name? Do you have any idea how my heart constricts at the mere mention of your current affairs? My heart breaks every time. Every single time. Your name is enough to break down all the defenses that I have put up when you left. It is enough to break me all over again.
That's the funny thing. I go around for weeks not remembering you or anything else about you. I am happy. I feel free. Then someone or something reminds me of you, anything remotely connected to you, and all that is just lost. I am happy. I am. But, there's no discounting the fact that you're gone and no one else can fill the space that you vacated.
Silence.
That's the worst thing you could ever give me. I could take all the insults, all the ugly words. At least then, I know where I stand. But, this silence? I can't take it. It's impossible to counter. It's impossible to refute. It's impossible to appeal when silence is all that you're handed.
It hurts. This vise-like grip you have in me is choking me. It hurts that I am very much aware of your existence. I know how you're doing. Your brother keeps me up to date with your affairs, your schedule, your life. I don't even know if I ever cross your mind. I don't even know if you remember this younger sister that you had.
All I know is what I feel. And I feel as if you've already forgotten me, erased my existence from your mind. It hurts when you are still a part of my life when you've banished me from yours. Maybe, just maybe, I'm afraid to let you go because doing so would be saying that I gave up. Doing so would mean losing you from my life completely. And I am not ready for that. I don't know if I ever will be.
I would rather have you in my life as a ghost of the past, as that broken fragment, as that smoky memory than not have any part of you at all.
But, I'm still hoping. I'm still holding out for that day when you turn around and smile at me again. I'm still waiting for you to come back.
The bridge is not broken. Not yet. Not ever.
I'm waiting.
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