The Girl He Left Behind

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**Updating because itll still be a month or two before I publish this book and I had planned on having it published by last month but some personal things happened so I haven't had the time to sit and write more than a few chapters:( Im planning to have this finished and up by May or June!***

Healing a broken heart feels almost impossible. Because the only way to heal it is to fill it with so much love it overpowers the pain that broke it.

I used to think the only thing that could heal mine was another guy. While that might help make a person feel better, the truth of the matter is only the person with the broken heart can heal it.

Or the person who broke it.

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It took me a while to realize the kind of love I really deserved.

I used to try to settle, for the guy that made me happy after Abel. As long as he didn't cheat or hit me I thought everything else was worth dealing with. The insults, him ignoring me, him making me so much more insecure than I had been in the beginning. He knocked my confidence down, my spirit.

But he didn't do what Abel did to me so I stayed.

I tried to fix the relationship because I didn't want to give up like I did before. He'd choose so many things over me and he'd barely speak to me sometimes. But when I'd say something about it he'd call me toxic. He didn't think as his girlfriend that I had the right to ask him what he'd been up to and with who.

He made me feel so much smaller.

But he could make me feel so happy and special that I thought it was worth all the pain. Until the day when I realized there was only pain.

But I still didn't leave, he did.

Just like Abel.

I cried and I asked God why no one ever loved me enough to stay. I wondered for so long what was so wrong with me. Until I finally realized that I didn't need someone to love me so that I could feel validated. My parents weren't the best at showing their love but they loved me. My friends loved me, my dogs, I was surrounded by it.

But I couldn't appreciate it because I wanted a man to love me too.

I wanted a romance worth reading.

But it had finally dawned on me that I didn't need one. That what I needed was to learn to be happy alone again. Because Abel ruined it for me. Before him I was content with being alone. After him I stuck myself like glue to any guy who claimed to love me because I didn't want to be alone. I didn't know how to be happy being all alone after he left.

I had to learn to love myself again and to stop looking for it in all the wrong places.

In men who in the end didn't deserve me. Men who weren't ready for the kind of love I had to offer. Men who didn't understand love the way I did. I started focusing on myself and stopped pushing for a fairytale love that just wasn't coming.

And as I watched Abel from the balcony I knew that he entered my life for a reason. To teach me that not everyone is as sincere as they look and that my fairytale love that I grew up dreaming of was just a fairytale and nothing more.

We were living in the real world.

I stiffened at the sight of the guns the men downstairs held. I've been strong ever since Abel has re-entered my life, but a wall can only stay up for so long. Eventually it will degrade, just like my wall of strength was.

Yesterday was a wake up call. I had done something knowing it would get his attention. Practically invited him to come and take me. I may not ever forgive him, but that doesn't mean a part of me doesn't still love him and wish we could've had that fairytale life.