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This Is How You Let Him Go, For Real

Letting him go will not be the easiest decision she's made but it may be one of the best. It’s isn’t going to happen right away even though her heart wishes it could. 

It’s not going to be in one moment or come and go as quick as a mid-afternoon rain.

It’s going to crash around her like waves, some of them will be calm and some of them will make her feel like she's drowning but the good news is it isn’t ever going to completely pull her under.

People are going to tell her right away she needs to let him go, her brain is going to send signals to her heart but she's not going to listen. She's not going to want to listen.

She's stubbornly going to hold on to the “What if’s”. She may tell her friends she's ready to move on and heck, she may tell herself the same thing, but deep down she still holds onto a little faith, a little glimpse of hope.

It’s a hope that will eat her alive because it is likely to never happen. She runs all these scenarios in her mind but if he does come back what’s to say that he will stay this time?

She lies in bed late at night and roll over and she misses having him next to her. She has to be strong and she has to remember that had he wanted to be there he would. 

She refuses to give into the longing.

Her closest friends tell her that she deserves better, that she's going to be fine. She doesn’t believe them and it goes in one ear and out the other.

A song comes on the radio, one the two of them used to sing along to together, one that she has all the words memorized. 

It tugs at her heartstrings but she doesn’t change it, she lets it sort of consume her but just by listening to it without turning it she's already getting one step ahead.

She'll finally get some courage to get dressed up, to start thinking that maybe her friends are right, she's a beautiful girl that deserves to be happy. 

But just like a terrible chill that keeps coming back like clockwork he’s going to text her. It’s been weeks, maybe even months and seeing his name is going to cause her to spiral. 

She's going to be hit with a riptide of emotions. She'll go to text him back and her hands will be shaky.

She'll want to tell him she miss him, that she loves him and wants to see him as well.

Except she won’t let herself drown because in that moment, a reality is going to hit her and stop her dead in her tracks.

He doesn’t miss her, he’s just lonely. She's something to occupy his time, an easy target because he doesn’t want to sleep alone and he knows that she'll give in because he manipulates the way she feels about him to get his way.

She’ll cry for the wound reopening itself, for a guy who she would've done absolutely anything for. She'll cry about the memories as they play in snapshots in her brain and she’ll cry for everything the two of them could've been.

She’ll cry because she’ll realize it’s over.

But she’ll wake up the next morning and take a deep breath.

She’ll put on a new dress, a smile wide across her face and go out again. This time someone is going to compliment her and tell her that she's beautiful and she's going to actually hear them and believe them.

She does this over and over until it doesn’t hurt as much. She does this until something that reminds her of him doesn’t automatically sting and she doesn’t cry and miss him. 

She hopes he’s happy because that’s just the kind of person she is but she doesn’t want him back.

She hears that song again and it’s simply just a memory of the past.

She forgives but doesn’t forget, she moves forward because his leaving didn’t define her.  

She's only given one life to live, and if she spends most of it pining after a guy who couldn’t see the amazing girl he had in front of him, she doesn’t let the right guy do everything in his power to never let her get away.

Life isn’t one continuous chapter; some have to end before others can begin. Stories get better as we keep reading and her's still getting started.

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