I'll Love You Anyways

Camille Ware

You haven’t answered for a few days, which might as well be years. My fingers type out it slowly, mustering the courage to hit send. 

Why have you been distancing yourself lately? Did I do something wrong?

Except I don’t ever send it. I delete it and let myself linger in the text box’s emptiness, wondering how long it’ll be before you cut contact with me altogether. A million questions crowd my head, fighting for their spot at the forefront. None of them will win, but they will all lead to the same dreaded question: are you going to leave me too? 

You knew how many people have left me, and how much each one of their departures destroyed me.  You knew they started just like this: with the distancing. They all promised me with sincere eyes and a held hand that they wouldn’t leave either—just like you did a few weeks ago. You’re following the same pattern. I know how the story ends and still, my brain engages in that same tortuous guessing game where I beat myself to a pulp trying to understand. But I never do. 

In between the period of time when we were friends, in which you showed me even an ounce of love, I would’ve done anything for you. I would’ve gone wherever you told me to go, jumped however high you told me to jump and walked to the very ends of the earth if it meant you wanted to stay one more day with me.

But how many scars have I justified because I loved the person holding the knife? 

How many times did I polish the weapon you used to stab me in the back, over and over again until my blood ran ice cold? How many times did I let you step on me, destroy my confidence, ridicule me, manipulate me, and make me feel guilty for situations I was not responsible for? Just because I was desperate for some cruel form of comforting company? 

I stay, even though I am constantly used as a bandaid for other people’s wounds; I’ll distract you, humor you, comfort you until your hurt heals and you throw the bandaid away. 

I loved you even when our relationship stopped being fifty-fifty and it turned into seventy-thirty, eighty-twenty, and even until you weren’t putting any effort in at all. But  I stayed. I stayed because I wanted you to stay. But I want you to want to stay. I don’t want you to stay because you pity me or you’re bored and have nothing better to do than linger in my horrible company. 

I won’t have the courage to leave; no matter how much some small part of me wants to because I foresee how this cycle ends, but the fear of never knowing when someone will want to get close to me again is always present. I can’t lose another person because if I do, I will die inside just like I have so many times before. The pain will never go away. I will never stop thinking I was not good enough. I crave the reassurance you provided me in the beginning; I need you to tell me you aren’t leaving and I need you to mean it. 

And maybe it is a lot to ask, for you to stay forever. But I’m not asking for forever—I’m just asking for now.

But I expect you to leave and when you do, I will only remember the good memories—the times you made me feel wanted and loved, when we laughed for hours until our stomachs ached. I won’t remember how you twisted, pulled, and broke me down in a million different ways so you could feel powerful and good about yourself. Did I not do that enough? 

When you’re gone, my head and my heart will be in a constant battle: my heart will try to rationalize every hurtful thing you ever said because you were just “looking out for me.” You wanted me to be better, I’m sure of it. You were just pushing me. My head will tell me that I’m an idiot, that this wasn’t real love. My head wants to kick my heart for not leaving all those times before like when you told me I would look so pretty if I just tried harder or when you told me I needed to stop talking so much because I was getting annoying. But I didn’t leave because the heart, who craves love no matter where it comes from, always wins. 

So the questions continue. 

Did I not try hard enough? Was I too overbearing? Did I not bring you joy? Was I exhausting to be around? Did I suck all the life out of you like a leech? Was I too annoying or not funny enough or just plain boring?

Please tell me what I did that was so horrible so I can stop running in aimless circles with no destination trying to figure out what I did wrong! 

Please tell me so I don’t lose the next person too.

Did I love you too much? Maybe my hugs were more suffocating than comforting. Maybe if someone had taught me how to love, how to trust, then I wouldn’t have to overcompensate for existing by giving you random gifts as if they’ll make you love me more or answering your every command like a dog attached to an electric leash. 

Just tell me you want space! I can give that to you! 

Just… don’t leave. 

I hate the fact that I am so willing to sacrifice everything just so you’ll stay. What you don’t realize is how hard I’ve worked so you’d be happy in this friendship, relationship, whatever this is. I overthink, overanalyze, and overcompensate for every single part of this relationship, and for what? I’ve hidden so much of myself just so you would like me and still, it wasn’t enough. I didn’t tell you every time I cried or had a panic attack or when the anxiety was rising or when I was at an all-time low or whenever I genuinely hated everything about myself because I wanted to be easy to love. 

Was I not easy enough to love? 

Were my struggles too much for you to handle? Does that make me unworthy of love?

These thoughts run through every single relationship and friendship I have ever had. It is so exhausting to get so excited to meet new people and have your brain immediately slap you with the reality of assuming everyone will leave you just because you exist.

I am so unbelievably tired of begging people to love me but I can’t help but think that if I don’t beg, if I don’t overcompensate, if I don’t pour all of myself into relationships that do nothing but hurt me, no one will want to stay. I have been begging my entire life and I am so tired. 

But yes, I am begging you to stay…

But if you choose to go, I’ll love you anyway until the pain lessens day by day and you become a little memory in the back of my mind. 

What a curse: to love as fully and wholly as I do…even though we won’t ever talk again albeit the occasional awkward run-in on the streets, I will still think about you on your birthdays, wonder if you’re doing okay, and wishing that I would learn to not hold on too tight to anyone’s heart but mine.

Edited by Emma Moran & Kate Castello