Warning Labels

I've been meaning to write about my first semester in college, but something happened when 2016 began that I just lost the drive to write about it. It is currently sitting in my drafts, unfinished and rotting.

But what is finished, however, is a certain relationship. I am not strong enough to recount to you the entire story since the "breakup" only happened exactly a week ago today. Though I am slowly accepting the reality of it, it still hurts. 

Here, instead, is a part of the story.

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I remember our last day together perfectly. It was a day that we had set a month prior, in December 2015. When we planned it, we just wanted to meet. We weren't planning on breaking up.

But something happened between the day that we planned it and the day we actually met, and while I will tell you that I had already changed my mind about leaving, you thought differently.

We weren't even officially together. Just old friends (or, rather, exes) who (still) had feelings for each other. Just best friends who found comfort in each other that trumped everyone else's version of it. The kind that said, "I can't find this in anyone else but you." You know what I'm saying? Even Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake in Friends With Benefits got nothing on us.

We'd been texting since October last year, just two months after we ended our 8-month relationship. It first started as a normal "how are you?" "yeah, I'm good, MedTech's been killing me" "Please take care of yourself" kind of conversation, as was our habit even before our relationship. Eventually, it evolved into something more than that.

We found ourselves at the crossroads between friends and lovers.

Even at that crossroads, we still found many forks in the road. I was never really over you, even though I had a 2-week tryst after our official breakup and it was with a guy I didn't even like. And you, as you had claimed, were still in love with me and the pain was only making you miss me.

So I never really quite got over you, and that included getting jealous of other girls, of the same girls I was jealous of during our 8 months together. It was a bad itch that I, unfortunately, always scratched.

And you were the same, but we knew our boundaries because we weren't really together. What rights did we have?

That statement sure didn't stop us. Our toxicity to each other was never measured in our rights because, right from the start, we ignored our warning labels and went for the kill. Mine said "toxic material", yours said "fragile". Fragile because I was the one who left. I was the one who always left, needless to say.

We continued texting. I kept trying to push you away, kept trying to convince you that I was only going to hurt you, that even right now as we were texting, I was only making you hope, because we both knew that, after everything, I wasn't ready to be in a relationship again, especially not with you.

You always said that you were willing to wait for me, that if hurting while hoping was all you had of me, so be it.

You never were a fan of self-preservation. We were both the same that way.

What we did was a kind of cha-cha. Whenever you took a step forward, I took a step back. And whenever I took a step forward, you froze in your place, asking yourself if me making the first move was even real.

I'll admit, at that time, I had a cha-cha of my own. A one-person tennis game playing right in my head. My heart was scolding me because I knew I still loved you, and yet, there I was, dragging you by the neck.

In simpler words, I was leading you on. You gladly let me.

But you are still human, after all. Nobody has resolve that strong and the only thing I could tell you was, "You said you read the warning label."

So, on our last day together, after a year and 3 weeks of being together and not being together, including the actual relationship, I snuggled even closer to you, knowing that it would be the last. You were warm and comforting and you felt safe. I let myself bask in that because, even for a moment, I could pretend you weren't leaving.

"I love you," I said, for the first time in a very long time. Even in text or chat, I never let myself say it, afraid that it would only bring disaster to you. I said it a few times, maybe, but never enough to let you get used to it.

And for the first time ever, your reply was "Really?"

I struggled not to cry, instead choosing to just nod and bury my head in your chest, where I felt safer, and wondering why I never held you tight enough.

I had fears of my own. Plenty of them. They clawed at me daily, whispering things into my ears and I used to call you about them, and you'd accept them wholly, even when one of the causes for that fear was you, and you'd talk to me and help me get through it and, I don't know, there was always something in your voice that kept them at bay. Singing or talking—it didn't matter.

But you still left that day. There were many reasons: you got tired. You didn't know if I even loved you enough. And, mostly, you got hurt.

I know I screwed up this time. I had confessed to you, when the new year began, that there had been guys texting me. I never initiated conversation, but the fault in the matter was that I still replied. I did stop. It was never really difficult to stop texting mid-conversation. It was only difficult with you.

But I guess, even then, it was already too late.

The worst part of it all was that we weren't even in an official relationship. Then again, with us, labels never mattered, even the potentially dangerous ones.

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HERE'S WHAT I DIDN'T MENTION: For the first time in my life, I was the one being left behind. Before then, I always made it a point to be the one who leaves, never the other way around. The way I saw it, leaving was the lesser evil. It hurt significantly less than being left behind. But life has a funny way of biting you back in the ass and letting your sins finish you off. 

After leaving behind 3 guys, including him (who I left behind twice), I finally got a taste of my own medicine, and rightfully so, because I had never been hurt this much before now.

But I am happy to serve my penance because I know it is the only way I can fully understand the weight of my sins. 

I'll always be toxic material. What would you expect from a girl with an incurable illness and emotional instability issues? Tox(s)ic(k) material, indeed. 

Always,
Claire 

P.S. I had to keep a box of tissues beside me while writing this. That's why it doesn't make a lot of sense. But that's only a part of the story, anyway. I only write this in the hopes of getting it off my chest, but we all know I'm a professional at lying to myself.