January 16, 2025

Dear Diary, I’ve stared at my screen for a couple minutes now, wondering where exactly I should start. It’s been over a year and all my words still feel so weak when I’m speaking to you. It’s like I’m talking but I know there’s no one listening. In the off chance that you are listening this time, this is what I need to tell you.

It still hurts. It has never stopped. It doesn’t always hurt the way it used to, but there’s a certain kind of pain that has lived within me since the day I left you. I’ve never missed you; no one should miss being lied to or cheated on. It’s less about that, and more about the way you cared so little for hurting someone you swore to have loved. It’s been so long, and I still can’t wrap my head around how you could have lied about so much for so long, and how I still loved you anyway.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m capable of loving anyone the way I loved you. You destroyed my heart, and in the end I still worried about protecting you. I had never cared for anyone like I cared about you. There was a time you said the same about me, but I think that’s what you tell all of them.
​ You made me scared to love anyone. That might be the worst part of all. Because of you, my heart doesn’t want to give anyone else a chance. I know if I were to be treated again the way you treated me, my heart wouldn’t be able to handle it. Because of that, it’s safer to give it to no one. You made me afraid to indulge in the most beautiful thing the world has to offer, and I tell you that because I hope you realize that the things you do to others can have a powerful effect on them—they can change people. I want you to realize that if you tried, you could make that effect positive. Instead, I’m left reaping the consequences because of your careless approach to love.
I only hope you never put someone else through what you put me through, even though I know you already have. No one deserves to feel so inadequate for so long. No one deserves to be told they are loved, only to realize there was never love at all. No one deserves to put her whole heart into someone who only gives back lies. No one—except maybe you. Who am I to say what you deserve? I’m the person you so carelessly pretended to love who ended up being the girl who couldn’t trust anymore. Maybe if you went through what I did—if you got everything you gave—you would stop being so careless. You deserve to know how you have hurt people.
It was okay that you had feelings for someone else. I can forgive you for cheating on me. Maybe I can forgive you for lying, too. But I will never forgive you for going out of your way to take away everything I held closest to me. You destroyed our relationship, you destroyed my friendships, you destroyed my humanity—and you never cared that you were doing it. That’s something I’ll never forget about you. You consciously took away everything that made me want to live. Because of you and all the pain you caused, there was a time I wanted to die. I hope you know that, and that you never forget it. I hope, even though I know it’s in vain, that you never make anyone else feel like that.
I’ve told you time after time that you can change, but you don’t listen, nor do you care. You’re content with hurting people as long as it means you’re not hurting yourself. Here’s something I’ve never said to you: I think you’re selfish. But you don’t have to be. If you cared for people as much as you pretended you did, you could do great things for people. If you truly loved people like you claimed you did, some people might end up feeling whole, instead of fractured like me. If you were just honest, I wonder how great you could be for this world.
I may never stop hating you for who you were when I knew you, but I also don’t think I’ll ever stop loving the person you could’ve been—the person I thought you were. You’re so vain, you probably think this means I still love you. I don’t, because you’re not that person. But I have never stopped believing you could be. I hope you believe that too.
You asked me once to never give up on you. I haven’t.