To All The Boys I’ve Loved (Entry 3)

Dear Chi,

How are you doing? Honestly it feels awkward having to write to you this way. How have you been? I still see you around sometimes. I see you deliberately avoiding me and it beats me. Maybe that is the awkwardness that comes from wanting to be with me a year after we broke up, and me saying no.

Don’t get me wrong; there were times I wanted you back. Times when meeting you would create a lump in my throat – the same way I always felt from the day I first said yes.

Looking back now, I can say I am grateful that we never got to work out. I was open, too open. And you took advantage of that. You leveraged on my insecurities and were swift to attack me with them when you needed to win an argument. You might have been a lawyer-in-training, but that does not justify your constant attack on personality rather than perspective. I loved the fact that I was vulnerable with you. For once, it felt okay to not have to be perfect before anyone. That wasn’t wrong for me to do. What was wrong was how you took it, how you handled it, how you handled me.

I am not going to deny the fact we had genuine feelings for each other. I saw the love and affection in your eyes during those moments when you’d take my hands in the dark and draw me to you. I swear I still remember how you smelled. Those moments gave me peace. I felt complete.

I miss hanging with you at our favorite stops; our usual bus stop where we’d meet at night and laugh and talk till you’d get sleepy and I would have to walk you to your room. I miss having to share your six-spring mattress with you. I miss staring into your frog eyes. You have beautiful frog eyes.

A part of me regrets giving you room to break my heart. But then with the pieces perfectly put back together four years later, I can say that I’ve learned. I have learned not to put all my cards on the table. I used to beat myself up a lot when I thought about how much I had to shrink myself just do be with you. Do you remember how we always had to part ways whenever you were with your friends, because they didn’t like the way I walked? Or when I had to cut my hair a certain way, sound a certain way…anything to make me “be cool”?

I shed myself, layer after layer, trying to be the perfect boyfriend, and you still had issues. But thank God I did all that – because now I know never to try that shit again.

And yeah, I knew about you being “strictly top” with me, while you rode other men’s cocks behind my back. Now you know why I had to orchestrate your hookup with a hoe who fucked you good, after which I dumped you in the trash where you belonged.

Phew! I said it. It was I who did that to you, and it feels good.

But hey, I mean, I was in love with your body, man. We should still fuck sometime soon. You owe me. But do you though? I don’t know. Whatever!

Life after you has taught me to always have my guard up whenever it comes to matters of the heart. It has prevented me from getting hurt. But then, I feel as though it has scared people away.

I could go on saying all I’d have to say about you, about us, to you. But that’s alright. I just hope one day I can tell you these and more face to face – after, of course, I’ve slapped you, kissed you and then cried the last vestiges of you that has stayed buried within me out for you to see, knowing I would never want to see you again.

Till then.

Love, Olly.