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Dear Michelle,

I have written this letter in my head a million times, and in this final attempt to put these words down on paper, I will write it no matter what. I’m writing this letter today, at 9.00 am this morning, to express myself to you. I wish I could see you to tell you the things I will write in this letter ignoring how difficult that might be to do.

I hate watching TV shows. They always make you think about everything and when you particularly enjoy watching shows that center on love and relationships, it’s even worse. It makes you think about things. Like how you have no one. Every time in my case.

Sometimes, you think you know so many people but you really don’t. They don’t matter in a way, just phone contacts on your Whatsapp and nothing more. They are just there, like evidence to show that you know a lot of people. People you don’t know.

But I know you, and I love you.

I saw you watching me while I ate that first night from the corner of my eye in the canteen. Then when one Sunday you messaged me saying your sister had taken you to Radisson’s, you said you wished I were there with you again and that meant the world to me. You meant the world to me and I know I’m not perfect, well, neither are you.

You hurt me several times. It was always on your face when it seemed I was embarrassing you. I was hurt when I couldn’t give you the things you wanted. I couldn’t handle it. I can’t do all of the things you want me to do. Why? I’m just like everyone else awaiting results. I’m waiting for my big break, too. So I don’t need any extra pressure especially from you. It’s emotionally draining. I couldn’t stand to disappoint you if things didn’t happen the way you wanted them to. Life is okay, it still needs improvements, but please, don’t put that burden on me. And forgive me if I am not what you wish I was.

I saw this show (Being Mary Jane) where Gabrielle Union’s character reunites with her Ex at this ball. They were dancing and having fun (Mary Jane and her Ex) and relieving old times when he tells her he is currently seeing someone. You could tell from her reaction to this piece of information that she was disappointed and that she still loved him even though they were not together anymore. She left the ball minutes after. It occurred to me at that moment that there will always be that one that got away. The one that made you feel special and one-of-a-kind even if you didn’t feel that way about yourself. It’s not a usual feeling. It’s simple and nice and prideful and you feel so lucky you experienced such a thing in your lifetime. And I thought, again, that if time passes us by, I have a feeling I will be the one still waiting and reliving those moments in my mind and by then you’ll have moved on to somebody else or become married off hastily to someone else. In my own version of things you would have gone. I’ll be crushed and will never want to see you again because it will finally dawn on me that I will never have my forever with you. That it was never meant to be. I just hope I won’t be thirty-eight at that time.

You see, I hate how things are with us. How we see only a couple of times in a year. Sometimes, I don’t want to see you because I know I will have to say goodbye again. It’s tough. You re-enter my life time after time bringing me rainbows of happiness, texting in whenever you like after you are gone leaving ghosts of memories for me to chase after. The worst bit is when you go on telling me about people you like. No please and no thanks. I want you to say you like me, that you still want me. That we made a mistake. That you think about me every day, just like I think about you. I don’t want to know about other people as cheerfully as you make it seem. I don’t want to. You can’t do these things to me. It messes me up and I don’t know what else to do about us but to let you go. My back is against the wall this time around. I have had enough. The quest for hidden treasures for either of us to find has been given up by me.

So here’s the truth. I will say goodbye to you. I will ask you not to talk to me again, ignoring completely all the things you do to me. Completely disregarding my emotions and feelings, I will not play along the lines of being great friends just to have you in my life.

You will always be you. Funny face. You will always be the one I’d settle for out of everyone else. But life’s uncertainty and inconsistencies define my decision now. To let you go and leave you alone. I may be wrong, but right now I’m tired of waiting for you.