Dear John,

I thought you were more than just a boy. I thought you were my rescue. Taking me out to the river at night, our feet dangling in the icy current as we gaze up in wonderment at the starry sky. Because how can someone, who could take all my pain away with a single touch, turn out to be just another boy?

I remember my comfort in your anger as you shattered your mother’s favorite glass figurine against the wall. You’d heard someone hurt me. I’ve never felt so safe, curled up in a ball watching rage encourage your violence. You spent the rest of the night holding me; telling me never again, never again would someone hurt me like that.

It breaks my heart every time I wake up and realize you’re not there; you’re not my soulmate, not my forever, not my lover. You’re not even my friend. You’re just some boy.

You showed me the world from your eyes, you taught me to look at things in a new way. You changed who I am.

I miss my old self, but I know I can never go back. I can’t take back what I’ve done. I can’t forget being chased down the street at two am and hiding in a bush, waiting for the coast to be clear. We soon forgot to be silent as our clothes fell off and the trouble suddenly seemed so far away. I will never forget the scar you keep hidden on your back or the star birthmark on your foot.

I don’t know how you became just a boy. You weren’t at the start, but something must have happened in the middle, to make it so at the end. What was it? How was anything strong enough, sad enough, bad enough, to turn your beautiful, lop-sided smile into just a memory?

Some things seem never ending, but all things end, don’t they? Even life. And as I’m learning, especially love. I thought you were more than just a boy. I thought you were my rescue.

It turns out you are just another thing I need to be rescued from.