Not once when I was growing up did I pray to the gods of childhood for this. Never did I ask for secondhand love. Never did I pursue intimacy in the darkest of places. Never once as a child in my bedroom playing dolls did I ever wish or imagine that I would be someone’s back-up plan. But when I look into the mirror and see the face of the woman I have become, I shudder. This is not who my mother raised me to be. My mother taught me to be strong, and to carry on, and to not rely on any man for anything. But here I am, frantically grasping for any particle of hope that may be floating in the air, desperately longing for that boy to finally realize that I am, in fact, the only one that could ever fulfill his needs and desires. I didn’t ask for this, and I’m almost 100% positive that no girl in her right mind would ever want this for herself. Yet I dissect every sentence and cling to every word and count the beat of every syllable that comes out of his mouth. I wait for him, constantly. It’s been years, and the memory of his kiss is still fresh in my mind. It’s been so long, and the taste of his lips is still lingering, my skin tingling.

And you know the texts come late at night: they’re hollow words that sound sweet and leave empty promises ringing in my ears. Of course, in the moment, I see it coming. I know what he’s doing, because I’ve done it to him. I know that these moments of closeness are sectioned off by curtains of secrecy and resignation, like there’s nothing else to do, and no reason not to, and no reason for anyone else to know – ever. So don’t you tell, and I won’t tell either.

He’s far better at not caring than I am. He goes about, prancing through life with no regrets and nothing holding him back. Not even love. Love, for this boy, is nothing more than a chemical reaction caused by hormonal secretions from the pituitary gland. He’s got it down to a science, and he can love me when he wants to and hate me when he doesn’t.

But how did I even get into this cyclical mess of being good enough one moment and trash the next? How did I get from the girl my momma raised me to be, to the girl I am now? What happened? Who am I? I wait around, and wait, and wait for this boy to finally realize that there really is no one better out there than me, and he waits around for me to realize that he doesn’t care. Oh, and the deleting of the number! Add his number to the phone book, delete it. Add, deleted, add, delete, add, delete, add again. It never ends, because I never let it.

Deep inside of me, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I know that I’m good enough for any guy out there (maybe). But even further back in the recesses of my mind is the knowledge that I don’t want to be good enough for any guy in the world… I just want to be good enough for this guy. Somewhere down inside my soul is the insatiable longing for intimacy and love, and yet there’s no one around to even come close to being sufficient, so I settle.

And I go back into this cycle of self-loathing and pity, again clawing for a chance to breathe pure oxygen instead of the polluted air suffocating me, yet my clawing and fighting gets me no where except back at his feet. Who is this woman I have become? This dependent, needy, insecure girl? Where is the woman I once was, or was once thought to be, who was strong and could stand on her own two feet? Where is she? I want her back. And I want him gone.