i wish you would call

i really wish you would call.

i'm sitting in my college dorm right now. alone.

if we were still talking, i would probably call you. we would laugh at my neighbour who hasn't stopped listening to dj khaled for the past hour. you would tell me the song wasn't that bad, but i would insist that it was.

i would tell you i was lonely. how much i wished i had gone to school in our city. how much i missed home. how much i missed you. then you would say it back, then i would tell you to shut up, then we would both laugh, and eventually, fall asleep together by 2 in the morning. like always.

i really can't believe how much i miss you. it's been almost 6 months since we broke up, almost 7 months since i last saw your face, and almost 10 months of you constantly being on my mind. nothing ever makes me feel better. i say nice things about you, then i say horrible things about you, i say nothing at all, but it all stays there. pent up inside me. stuck, static, stationary. like a fever i'll never be able to sweat out.

the first month after our breakup, in september, i thought day and night about reaching out to you (despite my friends telling me it was a bad idea). 9 days after we broke up, 9 days after you cried to me on the phone and told me you would love me for a long time, only 9 days later you told me you were seeing someone else. then i said some things, some spiteful things, and then you just never replied. open ending and open wound. although i asked you who it was, you never told me, but i'm not stupid enough that i can't connect the dots to realize it was her.

i think there are so many layers to the betrayal i felt. the fact that you left me to unpack it all on my own makes it even worse. sometimes i don't even know if your closure would help me. for starters, her and i used to be the best of friends, until we had a falling out and never spoke again. all of a sudden, she had somehow entered your friend group. it did bother me, but i never said anything. partly because i didn't want to sit there and talk shit (especially about something i had come to terms with years ago) and partly because i just didn't want to perpetuate that stereotype of the insecure girlfriend who dictates the people her boyfriend talks to. the other funny thing is that, although i know for a fact that you didn't cheat on me, it still feels like you did. i just think attraction and feelings for people take time to develop. they need nurturing. they don't just suddenly appear overnight. the fact that you just ran to her a few short days later just hurts me because i wonder if you were just keeping those feelings bottled up inside you while we were together.

either way, your relationship with her didn't last. you guys broke up only a month after getting together and i would be lying if i said that i wasn't extremely satisfied by seeing that ship sink. i liked feeling like she was your rebound, like she was just something you needed to get over me.

in those next few months, strange things did happen. for instance, your friend texted me saying you missed me (obviously as a joke, but i can't help but wonder if there was some truth to it). i diligently watched your spotify account (since it was the only place i couldn't block you) and saw all the sad playlists you made. one time, you even captioned one with a line from our favourite book, so i knew you were thinking of me. but you still didn't reach out to me.

i'm embarrassed to admit this, but after that, it got to a point where i just could not stop looking at your profile. every sad song you added made me feel a little better about myself. for some strange reason i thought it was a good idea to almost make a response playlist of sorts. what shocked me even more was that the next day, you changed the caption of your playlist to something that seemed like a reply to mine. it intrigued me, so i went back and changed mine to a simple "???". when i checked yours the next day it said "!!!". and then it hit me.

we were communicating on spotify.

weird? yes. embarrassing? yes. but did you contact me after that? no!

i guess i'm just really frustrated. i always wonder if this is done or not. will you reach out, or will you not? do you miss me, or do you not? i personally just feel that the ball is in your court because i see no reason to reach out to someone who purposefully tried to hurt me the way you did, but i'm so sick of wondering if that's even something you would think about doing. i just don't get it. if you could do all these intricate little things to get my attention, why can't you just text me if you want to talk?

my birthday is coming up in just a few days and i sit here every day, anxiously, wondering if you might possibly call. but if you don't, then i think i should take it as a sign to put my foot down and move on.

i just don't know. i wish our relationship hadn't become such a mess. i wish i hadn't become such a mess. i just wish you would call.