The Day I Decided It Was Over

You just walked out of my home… and I locked the security gate behind you.

You're still smiling as you say goodbye.

I know you were glad to see me.

We talked well, and I could feel how much you had been looking forward to telling me things.

You found it hard to leave.

I gave back the laptop you had lent me — together with the memories stored on it from your past with your ex-wife and the memories of us.

I no longer need it.

There is nothing left between us to settle.

The inventory is complete.

I have cut the final thread.

I have spent half a year trying to understand where our relationship went wrong.

I know where I made mistakes.

I also know that, for a long time, I was waiting for you to recognise your own part in what happened.

Perhaps I hoped you would say something — even only as a gesture.

That you regretted hurting me.

That you understood why I had reached the point where I finally had to leave.

But you never really did.

For a long time, I thought our shared past would eventually bring us back together.

After all, we had once been able to talk about everything.

We laughed together even through situations that were unbearably difficult and sad.

We knew each other so well.

Or at least I believed we did.

I used to think that love meant wanting to understand another person even when their feelings were uncomfortable for us.

But in the final period of our relationship, my feelings increasingly became something you wanted to control.

I wanted closeness.

You wanted distance.

I wanted conversation.

You wanted silence.

I wanted us to solve things together.

You wanted time to make everything disappear.

And while I was becoming increasingly lonely beside you, I kept telling myself that perhaps the old version of you was still somewhere inside the new one.

I thought one day he would come back.

The man I had fallen in love with.

The one who made me laugh.

Who touched me with tenderness.

Who looked at me as though I were precious.

The man whose arms once felt like home.

Instead, I spent eight months feeling alone beside the person with whom I had planned to spend the rest of my life.

My heart hardened from the lack of touch and love.

Eventually, I chose to leave.

Because I realised something painfully simple:

The man I truly want to spend my life with would never treat me like this.

Of course, these are the painful memories.

There are also many beautiful and unforgettable moments from our four years together.

I will never deny them.

I do not want to erase our past.

It was part of my life, and so were you.

But the painful moments were real too.

They hurt.

Deeply.

And you often acted as if they did not really exist — or perhaps you simply did not dare to acknowledge them.

Anger was usually your answer.

In your version of the story, the problem was often that I had experienced things “wrong”.

But my love for you never disappeared for even a moment.

I wanted you with the good and the difficult parts together.

Because I knew — and still know — what an extraordinary person lives inside you.

I also know there are things deep in your soul that still need to be untangled.

I cannot solve them for you.

And I no longer want to try.

The breakup released me in some ways.

But it hurt too.

It hurt both of us.

We struggled not to meet.

Not to talk.

The bond between us had always been powerful.

Naturally, there were stumbles after the breakup too.

Attraction does not disappear in a single minute.

Six months after we separated, we finally sat down to talk.

My only intention was to tell you what I had learned during those months apart.

I admitted my mistakes.

I told you what I believed I had done wrong.

Naively, I hoped that even if only as a gesture, you would do the same.

That you might tell me what you regretted.

Where you believed you had made mistakes.

But you remained silent.

The only thing you could say was:

“What a shame you didn't tell me this sooner.”

You are a man of words.

And still you had no words.

By the end, the conversation had become a polite, emotionally sterile business meeting.

You are a fascinating person.

At work, you refuse to accept the concept of a lost cause.

You fight until your final breath and keep searching for solutions.

And yet the woman who supposedly mattered in your personal life became a “lost cause” so easily — without any real fight at all.

We used to be the people who could and wanted to discuss everything.

The people who laughed our way through situations that were sometimes unbearably painful.

After the breakup, we kept inventing small excuses to remain connected.

Slowly, even those excuses disappeared.

I know you miss me.

But you try to love with your head, you silly man.

Love does not live there.

It lives in the heart.

Perhaps one day you will understand that too.

For now, you want to control everything.

Your own feelings.

Mine too.

The people and events around you.

But all the monsters you have locked inside cupboards will eventually find their way out.

And when they do, you will have to face them alone.

I thought about you for a long time.

About us.

About where we lost the road.

Then I understood the irony:

We actually shared one fundamental priority throughout our relationship.

Both of us treated your feelings as the most important ones.

To truly feel the loss of someone, you have to love them more than yourself.

And even me — the friend you had secretly loved for years — you only allowed yourself to love that deeply during the first half of our relationship.

When I look at you now, I no longer see only the intelligent, confident man I once admired.

I also see a frightened boy.

Self-protective.

Sometimes selfish.

Trying to bury his feelings deep underground so they cannot hurt him.

But walls do not only protect.

They also block us from beautiful things.

I am glad I was brave.

I am glad I did not remain trapped in a relationship simply because, at thirty-one, I was afraid of being alone.

I am glad that unlike you, I dared to own my feelings.

I am glad I had a life before you.

A life with you.

And now a complete life after you too.

I am glad that when I am happy, I allow myself to be genuinely happy.

I am glad I dare to be sad.

And angry.

I am glad I can live a full life without you.

I am glad you were part of my life.

You will always remain one of its most precious chapters.

But I also know I made the right decision when I stopped making you part of my present.

You have just left my home.

I lock the security gate.

I can still see in your eyes that you were happy to see me.

That part of you would still pull me into your arms.

That you still find me attractive.

When you say goodbye, you give me two kisses twice — almost as though you can sense that this time I really have closed the story.

I turn the key once more.

You are still standing on the other side of the gate, smiling.

I know you will never disappear from my life completely.

You do not have to.

But I am glad that I no longer wait for you to contact me.

You begin walking home.

I pick up my wine glass.

Two sips remain.

I close my eyes and drink one.

For the final time, I picture your blue eyes.

Your smile.

I hear you calling me by the nickname only you used.

I remember the way your fingers touched the skin behind my ear.

The way only you knew how to touch me.

How I used to pull your face tightly toward mine until we disappeared into a kiss.

How you would rather run short of breath than move farther away from me.

For one last moment, I want it to hurt.

---

To burn.

To choke.

To torture me that you are not here and will not be here again.

I want the pain.

But it no longer comes.

I open my eyes.

Drink the final sip.

Look around my home.

And smile.

Now it is really over.

(The cover image is only an illustration.)

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