Messages (Phan fiction)

Chapter 11

Phil,
I’m really sorry for telling you this by writing and not actually talking, but I don’t think I could do it if we were face to face. I couldn’t stand seeing you sad or even crying. 
I know, I’ve told you I loved you, and I really thought I did, but it just doesn’t work, I thought it did, but I was wrong. We aren’t meant to be together. 
I am sorry. 
Not only for breaking your heart now, but also for making you think a relationship between us could work. We’re just too different. I know, there’s a saying “Opposites attract”, but I don’t think that’s true for us.
I hope you’ll get over me, I’m not worth whining over anyway. I hope you’ll find someone who cares about you just as much as you deserve it. 
Don’t get me wrong, I did care about you, I still do, but it isn’t enough. 
I don’t expect you to answer this letter, I wouldn’t want to do so either. But please, forget about me. I’m not good for you - not good enough anyway. 
Dan

I read the letter, over and over, so many times I probably knew all the words by heart, but they didn’t make any sense to me at all. 
Not after reading them five times and still not when I read the letter for the maybe fiftieth.
We had been together for more than a month already, and everything had seemed so perfect - to me anyway. Why did he all of sudden decided that it wasn’t working?
Hadn’t he been happy with me? Had I only imagined the love in his eyes every time I had looked at them? Dazzled by my own stupid love for him? 
Had he perhaps never felt anything for me at all? 

But then again, he had always been so honest with me, had trusted me with everything; even with the secret of his self-harm. Hell, he had even showed me the scars, had let me kiss them better. You wouldn’t let someone do that without having feelings for them, would you?
However, Dan’s devastating letter told me yes, he would. 
Apparently his feelings weren’t more than friendship, or not even that because of our “indifferences”, I never knew were existing. 
Maybe he had just pitied me all the time; too nice to just break up with me after a few days. Maybe he had hoped to become attracted to me at some point, so he wouldn’t have to break my heart. 

But honestly, I would have preferred him ending our relationship right away, instead of making my feelings for him heighten and then smash them like a glass bottle.

A lonely escaped my blue eyes, slowly running down my pale cheeks, leaving a wet trace, until it had reached my chin and then dropped. It swiftly fell down onto the piece of paper between my trembling fingers, smudging Dan’s neat writing where it had landed. 
Soon enough more tear drops followed, making it impossible for me to see clearly. 
I put down the crinkled sheet, preventing it from getting any wetter, as the flood of tears continued to escape my eyes. 

I don’t expect you to answer this letter.

Well, even if I would be able to do so without sounding desperate, I would have no idea what to tell him anyway. Don’t leave me? We can make this work? I love you? 
None of it would bring him back.
He had made himself very clear; he didn’t have romantic interests in me. 
However, that didn’t change anything about my feelings for him. I couldn’t just turn them off and play happy, when I really felt like dying. 

My eyes felt sore and tired from my crying, but I couldn’t close them and get some rest. 
Every time I did, my mind would produce pictures of Dan and throw them at me, making me want to throw up. 

Whoever had said that it’s better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all, had probably never really been in love. 
I’d have given everything to forget about Dan. Forget about loving him. Yes, I had had a few amazing weeks with him, but thinking about them didn’t make me feel better at all. The memories just increased the pain deep inside my chest, where my heart was supposed to be. 
But it didn’t feel like it was alive anymore. It was beating, of course, but I didn’t feel anything. 
Dan’s love had been filing it to the bursting point, but now it was just empty, painfully beating in my chest. Remembering how much I wished to be dead rather than alive.