I’m breaking up with you.
I’m sorry I didn’t say this in person. I just didn’t want to ruin the little time we were able to spend together. But you need to know why this is happening.
It started with a handshake, you see. I was new in town, and I met you through a friend of a friend. He said you’d be warm and open – perfect. You said you were enchanté to meet me. I believed you. You lied.
It started in a different language. I listened intently as words I hadn’t had the chance to digest swirled around the room, full of promise and comfort. I pretended to understand.
You asked me a little about myself, nodding along to my private life as if I were an open book you had read many times before.
You already knew my story. The question was just a formality.
It started with a smile. We sat opposite eachother, blissfully chatting away like two old friends with a great deal of history. You assured me that if I wrote my name and number down, you would get back to me. A second date in the diary. As soon as time would allow.
So I did. And I waited. And waited.
I tried calling. I tried sending you letters. I kept making excuses for you. I told my friends, my family, my colleagues, that it was only a matter of time. You’d had a busy day. You had other things on your mind.
Days, weeks, months passed. As Eminem so aptly put it, “it’s been six months and still no word. I don’t deserve it. I know you got my last two letters, I wrote the addresses on ‘em perfect”.
We even celebrated the New Year apart and all I could think about was you, and the promises you had yet to keep.
Do you even remember me? Or did you give up on us before we’d even begun?
I get it. People have bigger problems than I do. They have children, families to feed. And I know you’d prefer to pull people from a burning house rather than blow out the spark.
But I’ve heard rumours.
Rumours that you’re spending time with other people. You flash the cash, and people come running from all over the city.
Why would you remember me?
It ended with a phone call, you see. From the office where we’d met on that wintery day in October. You wanted to see my birth certificate. I’d been waiting months for some news, and I jumped at the chance to speak to you again.
We needed to sort things out.
It ended by the photocopying machine. There was no spark, not even a glimmer. I signed all necessary paperwork like I was filing for divorce which, to some extent, I was.
It ended with a tired smile, as I spoke my final words to you: “Is that everything?”. Yes. “So, I don’t need to speak to you again?” No. I walked out of the door for the very last time.
I didn’t even look back.
I told you I’d be here forever. Insisted, even. So afraid that all contact would cease once I admitted the truth, I kept it to myself and created a web of lies for you to fall into. But you were so caught up in your own web, mine never even made an impact.
Once I leave this place behind, there’ll be no more phone calls, no more letters, no more daytrips to the south side of the Loire. There’ll be no reason to keep in touch.
Oh, CAF, I never expected you to fix my problems. And I understand now that I was never able to get through to you. Human error, I suppose. But all I ever needed was a nudge, some sign to show you cared.
I’m sorry for ever having gotten involved in the first place. I’m sorry that the heartbreak we you caused will forever be synonymous with my time in Orléans. It was wrong, and naïve of me to think that we could ever still be friends.
But you promised me a lifeline. And, surely, that’s the very least you could offer me as I bid you au revoir, and head off on my way.
Call me, maybe.
Photo credit: Devotional Diva
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