What You Never Had
You can't really hate him.
You suppose you should, if only on principle. He fucked you, then acted like it never happened. He treated you perfectly fine, while you felt like shit.
You should hate him. But you can't. You don't know if it's despite or because of his fucked up version of morality, but you can't manage to hate him.
You still love him, but you resent what he could never give you.
Like love - the kind of love you assume he gives to his wife.
Like nights together - you only had one, and it was fleeting. And you knew it would never happen again.
And that is what he never gave you. The privilege of calling yourself 'the other woman.' The ability to say you were something to him - even if that something would never really last.
He never gave you illusions.
But you wished for illusions, especially during those nights alone when all you could think about was him. You'd give anything to think, 'Maybe he could love me, too.'
'Maybe loving him isn't pointless.'
'Maybe he'll want me.'
But you never could. You could only think, 'I love him.'
'He'll never love me back.'
He never gave you what you wanted, or even a vague facsimile.
He never gave you a thing. And maybe it's stupid to mourn for what never lived to begin with. But you do. You mourn the fact that he never loved you and never will.
You grieve for all you never had. You grieve like a person blind from birth that desperately wants to see.
Except there's nothing the blind can do. But you could've done something. You could've made him care.
But you couldn't.
Because you're just not that important.
But that's not his fault, is it? It's yours.
It's all your fault that he didn't pick you. It's your fault that your heart is in pieces. You're the stupid one.
So you still love him. And you still think about him. You want to think that he's thinking of you, too.
But you know that he's not. He's with his wife, his kids, and his friends. He's with people that he actually gives a shit about.
You won't cross his mind.
You know that, you know that he'll never swoop back into your life like a knight in shining armor. That's okay, though - you never believed in men on white horses before.
You know you won't start now.
There's nothing to hang on to. It's almost like he never really existed, like you fell in love with a phantom of your own making.
Maybe you did. But that changes nothing. Because what you feel - it's real.
You still think about him. You still love him.
Maybe you always will.
You grieve.