By: Aster Fong
I never wanted you to see me the way I saw you. Maybe, when I am done dissecting myself and will learn to do something else that doesn’t involve
spilling my insides onto the floor wherever I go, this will be the last time I will ever write about you. Your voice is a distant memory and your face is
merely composed of features that have been washed away with time, but you were something to me — a friend I no longer hear from, the
ex–boyfriend of another friend who I had no idea you dated until she told me, two years after you broke up with her. How did you end up together
even if it only lasted for a moment, four or five months of your lives trickling between your fingers like sand, even when she said you treated her like
scum?
Don’t get me wrong. I do not wish that you, not even fleetingly, would have seen something worthy in me and liked me instead. Would it kill anyone to
tell me something, however, and were you my first love? If somebody were to ask me, those exact syllables falling from their lips, I wouldn’t be able to
conjure an answer. See, I’ve felt affection for people, and sometimes, I long to hold them close and keep them in the palm of my hand so they do not
run away. You, however, are a different story. Perhaps, from the moment we met I have known that there would always be a distance between us no
matter how many sweets you offered me, no matter how many games we played, no matter how many messages we sent each other. I’ve seen your
dog. You’ve seen mine, too. Perhaps, this is the closest glimpse inside your life I will ever have.
Thank you for lingering as a spectre within the confines of my mind. Isn’t it insane, how I’ve spent longer knowing you without seeing you around, than
being able to speak to you? Yes, maybe first loves will always hurt, and maybe you were mine. If this is my final farewell to you, then I hope you are
happy. I hope you find someone who will be nice to you, and I hope you, in turn, will learn to treat them well. There’s, too, the wish that you remain
coveted by the comfort of your computer screen. The world is easier to face when you’re oblivious to its cruelties, after all.
No, I do not love you anymore.