//back

to ____ and ______,

after processing everything that happened a little longer, I think it’s not a good idea for me to try and be friends with either of you. no matter how much I want to believe otherwise, there will always be lingering bitterness and resentment that I can’t forgive. I reread the screenshots and they fucked with me pretty badly; just the fact that the relationship I was in for 3 years and valued dearly was kept purely as a backup option, and that you guys would have kept going as you did if I hadn’t confronted you. there were 6 months where I could tell ____ had a crush, where I watched her make perfect little handmade gifts and choose your arms instead of mine every weekend. I also don’t fully trust that the two of you haven’t been talking, but even if you really haven’t, my stance remains the same. I held on at the beginning because you guys meant so much to me and I didn’t want to lose two of my closest friends on top of the girl I loved all at once, so I apologize that this is a sudden change.

____,

thank you for sharing the letter and all your thoughts and feelings. i'm trying to write back one last time because i think you deserve to know much you've meant to me and how much regret i feel for the way that i've treated you. no words can express how sorry i am. i know more than anyone how much love you've given me and how much you've cared for me. i feel like an idiot and an asshole for not being able to remember all of that when i decided to make the mistakes that i did. there's nothing i can do to change the past, no matter how much i want to, i hate that most of all. i hate the person that i am for having been the one to hurt you so much. you gave me the privilege to love you and to care for you and it hurts me infinitely to know that i took advantage of that and caused you pain.

to ____ specifically, fuck you. not even for the cheating, not even for breaking up with me, because fair enough, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay in a relationship if I were checked out for a year either. you can’t control your feelings for ______, but you can control your words. nothing will ever hurt me as much as you asking me how long you had to wait to date ______ as I was crying in front of you at the lowest point of my life. I already knew you barely cared about me or the loss of our relationship in comparison to ______, but having that put into words by you, and further confirmed by “not even in september?” when that’s when she was supposed to move in as my ROOMMATE— that pained me more than words can explain.

i can't express how sorry i am. i promise that our relationship was never a backup for me, though it should have definitely been something that i cared for and worked for more. i never should’ve said all that shit about ______ in our call together, i let my present emotions get the best of me when i should’ve had your emotions at the top of my mind. i cared about you and our relationship and i never should’ve let anything else get in the way of that. i had thought for a long time that i could have both of you side by side, not either as a backup, and it was due to my foolishness and selfishness for even having thought that, that all this had happened.

and for the last while, you never brought up any concerns aside from the one time you asked me not to talk so much about career stuff. I asked you so many times if our relationship was working for you and you always said yes. it would have sucked for me to hear you didn’t have feelings for me anymore, sure, or if I was doing something you didn’t like, but I already know I’m not perfect. it’s so much worse knowing that you had doubts and kept them to yourself for an entire year. I thought that even though you had feelings for ______, at the end of the day you would return to me and our relationship as a foundation, and I was okay with that.

i loved you so so much and i can't even place when that all changed. if i had been strong enough or smart enough or considerate or kind enough, i would've been able to tell you about all my fears and hesitancies. i'm so sorry that i didn't, i'm so sorry that i let me be the worst version of myself to you when you've never treated me with anything but love. i wish that the love i had was enough, i wish that my efforts and my best at the time was enough, but you're right, the truth is that my best was not kind or good at all, and that i just couldn't be the person that i should've been. i wish that i could've loved you like i should've, like how you deserve to be loved, i wish that i gave you more than i did. i never wanted to do this to you and i know that doesn't matter because i did it anyways, i have so much regret because of that.

when we first started dating, I always imagined you would have been the more devoted girlfriend. I was never particularly romantic, and was scared I couldn’t offer you the idealistic love everyone wants. but this situation has taught me differently. you’re so sentimental that you believe the idea of soulmates and true love, and the moment you decided that ______ was your one and only instead of me, you left.

i'm so grateful to you, for all of yourself, your time, and your love that you've shared with me. it's something that i'll never regret, that i'll never look down on. the time that we've spent together means so much to me and i'll never forget it. thank you for everything, you gave me the best times of my life and for a long time, you were the one i loved the most. i'm so grateful to you for changing my life, for helping me become a better person, for letting me love you. i'm sorry i couldn't be the one to love and treat you as you should've. you've taught me so much about myself, about love, about life, and about kindness.

while soulmates are a nice idea, I believe that what makes a relationship special is the work put into it. the fact that we stayed together through so much, saw all of each other’s worst qualities and still stayed. butterflies don’t last forever. there are hundreds of thousands of people on this earth right now that would give me those, that are pretty attractive and that I could fall for. but out of every one of those people, I chose you, and would have stuck with you until the very end with our three cats and well-decorated apartment and sunday mornings attending art events and brunches with our friends if you saw fit.

i want you to know that i'm taking this chance to become someone that never does anything like this ever again. i need to face all the consequences and aftermaths head on so that i can understand all that i've done wrong and grow. i'm learning an infinite number of lessons right now and i hope to become a version of myself that i should've been for you: kinder, stronger, smarter, better. i'm working towards becoming a person that i and my loved ones can be proud of. i owe it to you and to all the people we know that i can be someone who never makes decisions and mistakes like this for the rest of my life, that i can be someone who treats my loved one with the utmost care and respect.

of course, this means that the two of us breaking up was a good idea considering this mismatch. I have no judgement against your values. they’re just different. if anything, I’m grateful they allowed me to learn more about love and myself. but I do want you to consider this in your future: what if someone else came along, better than even ______, understood you even more? would you abandon her too? it might sound stupid now since your current feelings for ______ are so strong, but I’d like to think at one point, if even for a second, they were just as strong for me, and clearly that changed. I would hope you learn your lesson and stick by ______ or whoever you date next instead of the more perfect third person, then the more perfect fourth person, then fifth. if the two of you do pursue something, I hold no ill will against you. I’ll be out of both your lives by then.

i'm so sorry for everything that i've done though i know apologies can't change anything. i hope the best for you moving forward. i hope that you'll be able to receive the love that you deserve and that life can treat you properly. i hope that your happiest times are yet to come. thank you for everything, you were my first relationship and the person that's been by my side for three years, i'll never forget that and you'll always be in my heart. after everything, know that i still care about you and i truly wish only the best for you. please take care ____.

love, ____

______, ____ really cares about you. she thinks you’re the “right person at the wrong time” and cutting off contact with you was worse than our breakup for her. when she got back to her apartment from spring break she wasn’t sad about anything except not being able to text you. I really valued you as a friend and think you’re a ray of sunshine, but whenever I think of you now, the image is warped by how much more ____ loved you than me, and how you could face me so undisturbed while brazenly flirting with ____ at the same time. I think it would be unfair to you if I tried to be friends when all I want to do is slash you apart with jealousy. I’m sad our friendship had to end so quickly. I wish we had more time, and that all four of us could have attended your graduation together.

____, I’ve also talked to our highschool friends and mutuals that reached out. I want to clarify I haven’t asked any of them to or cut you off. if they distance themselves, that was their own choice after seeing the things I sent them. I also felt guilty about sharing said screenshot evidence to people because I knew it would be embarrassing for the two of you and I didn’t want to hurt you or be “toxic”, as _____ phrased it. but frankly, it was embarrassing, and I’ll no longer hold back on telling people what happened because I think you two need to face the consequences of your actions to prevent this from ever happening again to others around you. I won’t shit talk, twist anything, or fabricate anything that didn’t happen. my side of the story was and will be confined to hard events that happened in this one situation and I hope we can keep it that way for all three of us. ____, I get back to LA on march 31st. text me when you need to come pick your stuff up and I’ll leave it outside for you.

love, ____