It's like you're the house I never had, the security of walls I never had. I always had to keep my own bricks so tight because there was nothing else to protect me, until I met you.

Somewhere buried deep in my heart was a longing for him, for us, for all that had remained unfinished. I only wished that my heart understood the way my mind did, that some questions could never be answered, that some words needed to remain unsaid, that some of our most significant relationships needed to be severed.

Until you, I never realized that people could change us. That we could find more within ourselves, that we always have more to give when we find people we want to give things to.

I wanted to keep him there to hold me up, to rely on, to remind me that there were places we found in other people that were safer than any walls could keep us.

Love should be easy. Life is hard. Relationships are complicated. But the love, that’s the one thing we should be able to count on.

I needed to walk away. I needed to walked away without trying to fix him or our relationship, but leaving the pieces broken wasn’t easy. It was like leaving shards of the most beautiful glass scattered across your floor, because the pieces were too shattered. And now, you had to step cautiously around the brokenness in order not to slice yourself on the remains.

You will always be my first love. My first everything. No love will be like the one I had for you, but I think the loves that come afterward can be just as good and most of the time better, because we are better. I was jealous when you first started dating her, because I could tell she was different. I kept wondering what she had that I didn’t, but it wasn’t her that was different, it was you.

I hurt myself by hurting you.” His face wore a look of compassion. I hated that look, because it reminded me that he was a good person, that he had tried over and over to apologize. He unwittingly brought out the part of me that I hated, and I projected that hate onto him, because it was easier to hate someone else than to hate myself. Tears poured out of my eyes. And he wrapped his arms around me, holding me as wept. And I hated that his arms still felt good.

You can’t make yourself love someone you don’t.”“And you can’t love someone if you don’t let them in. You have the potential for great love. I always felt that capacity within you. Don’t deprive yourself of the opportunity to experience something so beautiful with someone just because you’re holding onto a relationship that will never be.