This wasn’t supposed to be an end, but it felt like one. You grabbed for my hand and pulled me towards the swings. I stepped back as your questioning blue eyes scanned my face. I held both hands up, and stared at you.

“Before anything else, I just want to explain. I’ve got ten reasons.”

I heard the exasperated and pent up air escape from your full lips. I felt the frustration rolling off of your body in waves. I knew you weren’t happy, but I wasn’t either. But I just had to explain. I couldn’t leave it like this. I couldn’t leave you like this. So I started my story.

Summer nights always seemed to be on our side. We’d stay up for hours, laughing until the last breath left our bodies. We’d talk about everything that had created who were were. We’d fall in love everyday, over and over again. But that was perfectly okay with me. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid my eyes on. Your blond hair was a first for me, I’d never thought I’d fall for you. Yet I’d never wanted anyone more. But happiness never really lasts, does it? Somewhere along the line we forgot to hold on. We let everything go, and it never came back. My lies and yours were too much of a burden on this fragile thing we were trying to piece together.

The first one was for hope. I always knew you’d leave eventually, but that didn’t stop me from loving every second you were mine. I’d stand in front of you, tilting my head up so I could meet your eyes, and I hoped that you were happy. I wished for a bigger and brighter smile every day that yours started to fade. I wished for a fuller laugh when yours started to sound hollow. I wished for anything just to keep you going, you didn’t deserve to be so broken. You were too young to be so sad. I never stopped trying. But in the end, it just never seemed to be enough.

I knew my habits with stumbling over a lie happened far too often, but I wanted that to change. So the second one...the second one was for truth. You always said what I wanted to hear and as happy as it seemed to make me, that didn’t make it right. It broke me every day. Remember the day your thoughts forgot me? That was the day that your lies became more truthful than anything you had ever said. You told me things were getting better when they were only getting worse, I hated those lies. Those were the ones that hurt you, and so those ones were the worst.

The third was for love. The first time you said it to me was the happiest day of my life, we were in that park on our swings. Holding hands and watching the night rush by. Remember our star? I used to look for it every night, and I’d whisper all of my forgotten feelings as if you could hear me until I fell asleep. I think the meaning got lost in our constant “I love you more’s,” but that only made leaving you that much harder. I’ll never forget the broken smile I had spent so much time trying to fix on your face. Instead of responding with words, your empty eyes and unmoving lips were the only response I understood. That day still hurts me, I turned my back on you when you needed me the most.

The fourth was for mistakes. Lord knows we made plenty of those. We forgot how to care about each other somewhere in the midst of all of our lies. It was too much too fast, and you fell in love too easily. But our biggest mistake was giving up and not fixing it all. They created apologies for a reason, but we didn’t know how to use them. We didn’t even know how to mean them. Our feelings were a constant battle of who could act like they hated the other more. Now we’re both left with nothing but a handful of “I’m sorrys” that never were said.

The fifth one was for your wandering eyes. It killed me every time you looked somewhere else. I spent too much time telling you how much it hurt, but you never seemed to listened. You never seemed to even care. The bottle to your lips was your response of choice. They smell of Whiskey will never disappear from the air surrounding my heart because some of my most painful memories associate with the bitter scent. You’d take another sip and glare at me as I told you that nothing really felt right anymore. I couldn’t keep being disappointed in you, you’d tell me. You’d tell me that it was all my fault, that if only I’d loved you enough or if only I had tried harder then we wouldn’t be in this problem at all. But the thing was, none of this was ever my fault. It had just taken me this long to realize that.

The sixth one was for time. We never seemed to have enough of that. We could spend hours telling each other about our lives but it always seemed to run out when we still had so much to say. The nights without you seemed longer than the rest, that was the only type of time that I’d wish would go faster. Time didn’t seem to be on our side anyway, because it took you away from me. I cried for days wishing you’d come back but you never did. I didn’t think I’d ever heal, but I guess time did help with that. So maybe it’s good for something.

The seventh one was for regrets. You came filled with too many of them, and I wasn’t able to reassure you that all of your mistakes weren’t completely your fault. Your heart and back were both heavy with the weight of everything you thought you had messed up. I couldn’t bring it upon myself to judge you for that. It didn’t matter to me who you had been, I just wanted to be part of your future. I just wanted to fix you. But I never got the chance.

The eighth one was for happiness. You used to make my heart skip a beat every time my name tumbled from your lips. I can still remember the last time you said it with such feeling coating both syllables. Those dates that left us stranded in a park at 2 a.m. were always the best, getting lost with you was my favorite. Everything you would talk about was overflowing with such life, you were charismatic and you were so beautiful. I never had a chance to be sad with you around until everything got bad again. I guess you were that distraction I needed just to keep me going.

The ninth one was for words. There were never enough to explain what was going on, or how I felt. There were also never enough to explain to you that it wasn’t your fault. I couldn’t help but worry about that night when you lost the last important thing in your life. He loved you and she loved you. But their love couldn’t keep them around forever. They only left because it was God’s will, but you never understood that. You always blamed yourself, and I couldn’t seem to find a way to explain to you that it wasn’t your fault. Those words I could never come up with were the ones that we needed the most.

The tenth and most important one was for you. You were the most important thing in my life, and I never stopped loving you. I cared about you until the very end when you decided that drinking away your fears and pain were more important than loving me. You didn’t have to physically hit me for it to hurt; every word you growled at me sliced all of the confidence I had built along the walls of my heart into pieces.. Leaving you was the worst and best decision I’d ever made. And that star is just a constant reminder that you exist, and that at one point you were the most important thing in my life.

That was when I left. I couldn’t put up with a constant reminder of my past. I had loved you too much, I had tried way too hard. The lies destroyed us. We couldn’t keep hanging onto something that just didn’t seem to exist anymore. You had been a distraction and you filled that hole in my heart with your kind words and your loving hands, but you couldn’t keep that hole filled forever. You replaced the sadness with your negative feelings and you replaced the sadness with your anger and your words. Our time ran out and I ran out of chances to give. That swing doesn’t leave that park, and that star still stares at me every time I think of missing you. That night will always be ours. But now...our memories are spilt onto a page instead of to each other.