I dreamed of you.

Not recently. Not during any of this mess we found ourselves in. Growing up I dreamed of you.

I always knew I was going to be alone—I just knew it. I didn’t think like everyone else. I didn’t feel like everyone else. I didn’t love like everyone else. So that’s what you always were: a dream.

But then one day, years ago while at work, I looked out the window and saw you walking by to work at the coffee shop next door. You didn’t look like you were local. You were far too poise and handsome. I found you on Facebook. You let me kiss you on the trail behind the school. You let me ask you to be your boyfriend.

For the first time in my life, all the songs I had always heard were true. Being your boyfriend was my favorite identity I had ever held. You were my favorite thing to talk about. I wanted to talk with you about my own ambitions and plans and successes, but with everyone else I didn’t give two shits to talk about myself. I wanted to talk about you, about everything great in you and about all the great accomplishments you were acquiring; about your ambitious plans and fearless leaps of faith into unknowns. You were the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

I’m so sorry I wasn’t enough for you. I wish so hard I could have been. I wish so hard I knew I wasn’t.

I believe you never expected it to get this out of hand. I believe you always thought you could lie a little here and there and I would always stay at arm’s reach. You underestimated my conviction and intuition. The more I discovered, the more you would have to lie. Each lie was connected to the previous, meaning if you admitted to anything now a domino effect would topple every lie back to this one horrible, evil truth:

You were that which I loved more than anything else in this entire world, yet you would become my abuser while pretending to be my protector, keeping me in a world of lies and manipulation, and then rob me of my opportunity to heal from it all.

Your ire was foreign to me. You might recall my saying multiple times, “I don’t know who it is I’m talking to…” and it was not hyperbole. But I see now your anger towards me wasn’t really anger towards me at all. It was guilt and shame at your actions and being discovered. You may not realize this, but I do. I know you. So now you are six feet deep in a world of your creation, and you are having so much fun with your new friends, but you become the company you keep.