The Real ***tangle

PLEASE HEAR ME OUT AND DO NOT REPORT THIS

Yes, technically this is an author's note, but since this is a true story anyways, it's almost like all chapters are author's notes. (Let's just pretend that makes sense)

So I literally cannot continue writing this story, especially since this is the real version. It honestly hurts too much to think about it, let alone write it all like it's not my life. But I'm not going to leave everyone hanging. I'm going to summarize the last 2 years basically just so that you can get the general idea of what happened between us and not be left wondering all those 'what ifs'. But it's not going to be written like a story. And it's not going to be very in depth at all. Like I said, it literally hurts too badly to write any of it in depth.

Also, at the end of this, I'm going to put some of my current thoughts about what's going on (because it's still not completely over, believe it or not) and although I'm obviously not forcing anybody to, I would be eternally grateful if anyone wanted to try to help me figure any of this out. Because I'm so confused about a lot of things right now and don't know anyone that I can really talk to about anything like this.

So without further rambling, here's my very, very condensed version of what's gone on. This is sort of like you guys haven't read the previous chapters of this story.

Close to 2 years ago, I started dating this boy named Graham that was a few years younger than me. I really liked him, but because of his age and the fact that I'm already mature for my age, I was a bit skeptical about how our relationship would turn out. But I soon enough found out that he was really mature for his age too, and long story short we became really close.

Side-stepping here, I need to point out that I'm a very practical thinker and it's kind of hard for me to ignore that part of me, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. It's almost like I made the 'relationship' part of my brain shrink as I made way for more practical things. I'm also going to school for psychology, so I have a habit of over-analyzing just about anything in my life, and once I start analyzing something, I can't stop and I just keep thinking about it and picking at it. And lastly, this was my first real relationship. I'd dated one other guy, but it was in middle school and was only for a few months, so it wasn't serious at all. So Graham was my first real boyfriend, and there I was, a 17 year old girl with self-esteem issues, not knowing what to expect or how to even be in a relationship in the first place.

So coming back to me dating Graham...we were together for about 8 or 9 months before I started analyzing where our relationship stood. I decided that I loved him, but I really only loved him as a friend - which was a big problem later, but we'll come back to that - and that I didn't think it would be good for us to date anymore. Well it took me a couple months before I did anything about it because I wanted to be sure that's how I felt, and because it was summer and we weren't seeing a lot of each other. He was also going through a lot of bad family things and I still wanted to be there for him for that and I knew things would be weird if we broke up.

About a month and a half before what would have been our 1 year anniversary, I finally decided to end things between us. He never really told me this, but I know now that it was almost devastating to him. He was in love with me, and while I did love him, I just didn't love him as much as he loved me.

Since we still saw a lot of each other at our school's band, I made sure that we would try to stay friends - and I'm sure you can guess how much that sucks. The Friday before what would have been our 1 year, I noticed all night at the football game how Graham was shutting everyone out and seemed really depressed. When we got back to the school that night, I tried asking him and all of our friends what was wrong but no one would tell me anything and I started getting frustrated, which made him get even weirder.

Before I went home, I sent him a huge text where I explained basically how I didn't mean to bother him so much by asking what was wrong, but I just really cared for him and really wanted to be able to help him if I could, and yada yada yada. When I got home, I read his response, which was just as long, and he said that he got hit really hard earlier in the night with the feelings that he still had for me and that it was really hard for him to just be friends with me because of how much he loved me. And for about an hour, we talked some things out and cried some things out too, but I told him I needed a few days to think things over before I gave him any kind of answer on our future.

I took the weekend to process my thoughts and we sat down on Monday to talk about it all. The way I explained it to him was sort of like, "you don't know what you had until it's gone", because I realized that I was trying to act like everything was fine with us just being friends, but it wasn't working out very well at all for me either. So we ended up getting back together on what would have been our 1 year anniversary, which was totally and completely unintentional and way too ironic.

Fast forward through us dating again for about 7 months, when things were back to being really good. But then I start to feel like we might be drifting apart, somewhat because we didn't see very much of each other anymore. Then I start analyzing again and I start thinking about how I'm going to be graduating and he's not; how if we're drifting apart while I'm still in high school, imagine how it'll be when I'm at college; how I (super selfishly) don't really want to be dating a high school boy when I could be dating a college boy; how I don't want to look back on my life and regret that I've only been with one guy (if we had happened to stay together long enough for me to be reflecting like that) when - who knows? - my actual soul mate could have still been out there if Graham wasn't. I justified those very selfish points of mine by saying that I wanted to end things between us before they got bad, because if we were drifting apart, things probably would have gotten worse. So I said I wanted to end things on a good note because I still did love him and didn't want to lose him.

So we've now been broken up for about 3 months and I just keep finding myself regretting breaking up with him. Every time I have something I want to tell him about or talk with him about - because he became literally my best friend - I would remember that he probably wouldn't want me texting or calling him up and acting like things were normal again. So that just makes me wish things were normal again, and I really do miss him like crazy.

So at times like that, I can't tell if I really want him back as a boyfriend, or if I just want him back as a friend, which I would get if we were dating as well, obviously.

But then there are the times when I'm either feeling painfully lonely, or like everyone else around me has a solid relationship and I don't. And those times are when I know I want him back as a boyfriend. BUT, I have to keep in mind that he was my first relationship, let alone one that lasted a year and a half. So am I just feeling "the first cut is the deepest" syndrome? Or do I just want a boyfriend and not him specifically? I don't really know which one it is or if it's either of those at all. It might be totally something different and I really just don't know anything about relationships, so I won't know what's really going on in my own mind.

Then the other day I saw Graham and the girl he broke up with to date me (Sarah) walking together and because I know him and his mannerisms so well, it really seemed like something was going on between them. At first I was just kind of curious about it. I kept saying "good for them if they do have something again. I'm happy for them" and all that kind of shit. But then I started thinking about them actually being together again and I got really jealous.

And that confuses me almost the most out of anything else. Because he was a lot more torn over our breakup than I was, and I really should be happy for them, since they're both good people and would be good together. It just makes me almost mad to think about Graham with anyone else and I really just don't get why I feel like that.

So, really, I've been going over everything over and over again since that happened and all I can come up with is that I miss the shit out of my best friend. But as for our relationship past friendship, I don't have a fucking clue.