I Hope You Forget Me

I don't think there's anything left for me to say that would change what happened. I know what I've done. I know how badly I hurt you. I know that every apology in the world cannot undo the nights you spent crying, the trust I broke, or the weight I placed on someone who only ever wanted honesty from me.

I am sorry. Not in the way people say it when they want forgiveness, and not in the way people say it because they are afraid of consequences. I am sorry because I understand the damage. I am sorry because I carry the knowledge of it with me everywhere. It follows me into quiet moments and sleepless nights. It sits beside me when I wake up and when I try to fall asleep. It lives in old conversations, in memories, and in every realization of what I should have done differently. There is no version of this where I can look away from it.

I think about you a lot. More than I should. More than I have any right to. I keep thinking about your words and the things I failed to understand when they were right in front of me. I was so consumed by my own fear, my own shame, and my own desperate attempts to avoid losing you that I never fully saw what it was doing to you. I never understood how exhausting it must have been, how lonely it must have felt to keep reaching for someone who kept giving you reasons to pull away. You gave me patience. You gave me understanding. You gave me chance after chance after chance. Looking back, I don't know how you carried it for so long. I don't know how you loved me through it.

The worst part is that wishing changes nothing. I can spend hours imagining different versions of the past. Versions where I told the truth sooner. Versions where I listened the first time you asked me to change. Versions where I became the person you deserved before it was too late. I can build entire worlds in my head where none of this happened, where neither of us ended up here. But those worlds aren't real. The only real thing is the hurt I left behind. The only real thing is knowing that someone I loved so deeply had to carry pain because of me.

I wish I could go back and love you properly. I wish I could go back and pay attention to every small thing that made you who you are. There were so many things I loved about you, and I don't think I ever said them enough. I loved your kindness. I loved your intelligence. I loved how deeply you cared about people, even when it exhausted you. I loved the way you noticed details that everyone else missed. I loved your thoughts and the way your mind worked. I loved your passions, your opinions, your laugh, your voice, and the way you could make even ordinary conversations feel important. I loved the way you made me see the world differently. I loved the parts of you that were easy to love, and I loved the parts that weren't. I loved your flaws, your fears, your insecurities, your strange habits, your contradictions, and the things you apologized for even though they never needed apologizing. I loved all of it. I loved every version of you that I was lucky enough to know. I loved you in a thousand small, ordinary ways that felt so natural at the time that I thought I would always have more time to tell you.

What hurts most is that I don't just miss my girlfriend. I miss my best friend. I miss talking to you about nothing for hours. I miss hearing about your day and listening to your thoughts. I miss laughing with you. I miss being known by you. I miss knowing there was someone in the world who understood parts of me that nobody else ever did. I still catch myself wanting to tell you things. Something happens during my day, and for a split second I forget everything. For a split second I reach for my phone because I want to tell you about it. Then reality comes back, and there is nowhere for that feeling to go.

And God, this is probably selfish, but sometimes I wish you would accidentally call me again. Not because I think it would fix anything. Not because I think hearing your voice would somehow erase what happened. I think it would probably break me all over again. But I miss your voice so much. I miss the sound of someone who once loved me. I miss the way you sounded when you were excited about something. I miss your laugh. I miss all the tiny things that nobody else would ever understand. Sometimes I worry that time will slowly take those things from me. Sometimes I worry I'll forget the sound of your laugh or the way you said my name, and that thought terrifies me more than I can explain.

I don't think I deserve forgiveness. I don't think regret earns another chance. I don't think this changes anything, and I am not saying any of it because I expect something from you. I am saying it because it is true. I loved you. I love you still. And because I love you, I hope you heal. I hope one day the things I put you through stop hurting. I hope one day you can think about this part of your life without feeling the weight of it pressing down on your chest. I hope you find people who are honest with you, people who make you feel safe, people who never leave you questioning your worth. I hope you find a love that feels steady and gentle and certain. I hope you find happiness, even if I never know what it looks like.

As much as it hurts to admit, I hope you move on. I hope you build a beautiful life. I hope you laugh more than you cry. I hope you become everything you've ever wanted to become. I hope one day my name stops hurting. I hope one day you no longer carry any of this with you. And if that means forgetting me completely, then I hope you forget me. Because I would rather be forgotten than remain a wound. I would rather become a distant memory than be something that still causes you pain years from now.

As for me, I think a part of me will always carry this. because some people leave fingerprints on your life that never fully disappear. You are one of those people. You changed me. You mattered to me. You will always matter to me. No matter where life takes you, no matter how many years pass, there will always be a part of me that is grateful that I got to know you at all.

I love you. And I'll love you for what's left of my life. I hope you find the peace that I couldn't give you.

I'll always be yours, even if you're not mine.