Losing Lori

You were never persistent. You quit your jobs. You gave up on relationships. You never stuck anything good out when it got bad, even if the black cloud only hung over you for a little while.

You quit me, Lori. Things didn't go the way you wanted, so you quit. You threw down your cards and swept the table clean of every coin there was, even though you didn't win a single one without cheating.

I know there's nothing anyone can do to patch the hole in my heart. I know nothing will ever be big enough to fill the huge gape in my head either, the place where everything happy and sad about you festers and leaks out, all over my brain. No kiss or smile will ever amount to yours, and I'll never look at any woman without comparing her to the love I once had, and lost.

I don't know what made me stay with you for as long as you let me, Lori. I say this because we both know that when you called the red light, it would have been over. I had no say in anything. I let myself be shut down, pushed around, thrown out and taken for dead. It's because I was scared of arguing, I suppose. Everyone was right; you had me at hello and I always tried to avoid goodbyes.

Maybe it's because I saw some of the person I used to be, before you came along. It was in your laugh, in your voice, in the way you'd scream and yell when you were drunk and in a good mood. If you hadn't lied to me, I would have ran and never looked back.

You'd fooled me though, Lori. I met you in a bookstore, and that's what gave me the impression that you were a good girl, a quiet someone that I'd settle down with one day. Truth be told, I didn't need someone like you pulling me back into my old lifestyle. I thought that by asking you out, I was doing the right thing. Boy, was I wrong.

I never thought a single question would be what ripped my life apart. I never dreamed that four weeks in, you'd do a complete 360, trading your glasses for a million hair barrettes, your neat tailored pants for wild dresses and high heels. You swore to me that this was you, that it had been you, all along. But I never believed you. I think you were just beginning to play your mind games, and you wanted who I used to be. You wanted the boy that stayed up late and had a band and loved one night stands.

You got someone who wanted who you'd pretended to be, but got himself instead.