Everybody knows it’s always easier for those who walk away, and harder for the ones who stay behind. That’s why I know you had it easier — of course you did, because you decided to leave. The easier way, the escape. You walked away, or more like ran away, and didn't even dare to look back for months. A whole year.
Now you're saying you don't want me to be angry with you, to be upset with you? Of course I'm not, why would I?... After all, you've just left me there. There. And I had to be the one to go back to that place, day by day, and exist in that space that was us. Our place — where we'd spent years together, where we met, where we lived, we laughed, we worked, we survived, we became something. I had to go back over and over and feel our energies, the way they always tangled, feel what's left of you — in corridors, in offices, in empty rooms, the whole place.
And every single second I waited for you to appear, to materialise, just to be there again. I hoped that you would show up from behind shelves, that your silhouette would emerge at the top of the escalators, I wished you would stand there as the lift doors opened. I hoped and I waited, against better judgment, knowing that it's impossible. But this must be hope. It doesn't need reasons, or proof, or knowledge, or validation — it just is. It gets stuck somewhere in your chest and doesn't let go.
I walked through those doors every day, for months, hope clutching my chest that maybe today you will be there. Maybe today I can finally hear your voice in the headsets, or run into you in the toilet again. Maybe today you will be in the same dimension as me. I imagined you everywhere, and I think you really were there. Your energy was there, with me, and I don't know if that made things better or worse, but that's just how it was.
That was the most painful period of my whole life — and that's saying something, because I've been through a lot of pain. That one month leading up to your leaving was already enough. I thought I could prepare myself, that it wouldn't be that bad… nothing could have prepared me for when you really left for good. I braced myself for the moment of goodbye, but still, it was the worst grief I've ever felt. And then you were just not there anymore, and I had to be there, and the injustice of that? Don't even ask me how I survived — I wouldn't know what to answer. I just existed and survived, day by day.
And still, I hoped. Even if a part of me died that day you walked off and took her with you, the left-behind pieces of me hoped. Always. They still do.
I just think it was easy for you, but I'd like to think that now, it's easier for me. I'd like to think that now it's hard for you, because there's only so far someone can run. And the hope in me has persisted long enough to have changed into something of a different kind… now I hope to never run into you ever again. I hope to never see you appear from behind corners, shelves, or at the top of escalators. I hope to never run into you again, in any dimension, and to never hear your voice again. I hope I never have to survive that kind of pain ever again.
I left that building too. I walked off as well, and took the memories, the secrets, the energies, and now it's lighter for me too. I left my old self behind, just like you did back then — but unlike you, I left her with love and compassion, and the wisdom that: 'I love you, but it's time for me to go now. Thank you for everything. Without you, I wouldn't be who I am now. Because you survived, I can be my new self today.'
The left-behind who can finally walk away too.
