I am writing this letter because I won't call you (even though I want to). I know you shall never read this. You don't even have an account online anymore.

I am using our real names in the hopes that if I don't try and disguise what's happened, maybe I can let go of it. I haven't been able to so far. Minutes pass like hours. It's hard being all alone here. Talking to the cat is not enough and running up my long distance bill hasn't helped either.

I am haunted. Even when I sleep my mind won't stop. I keep having anxiety filled dreams with you as the star in them. I wake up with my heart pounding. This is not good for someone with a heart condition.

It's true that I am no stranger to feeling pain but what you said to me on our last day together was even worse than when I found out my (now ex) husband was married (and had a child) with someone else while he was with me. I actually believed the things you told me since day one. I even trusted you enough to let you drive my car when I have not allowed anyone else to do that (not even my mother).

It is extremely hurtful to have you say that you wouldn't put an effort into this relationship or talk to me about yourself anymore because it's not worth it since you couldn't see being with me for long-term even though you had recently told me you wanted to live with me, marry me and even take a "Russian Roulette" chance to see if I could get pregnant. But apparently it WAS worth it for you to have sex with me a few hours prior to this conversation. I have never felt so disgusting and cheap. I would probably feel less like a whore were I to have slept with 500 men.

It was like being with Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. It was even scarier to hear you tell me that between the choice of not having me in your life at all and being my boyfriend when you really didn't want to, you chose the lesser of two evils. Isn't that the same reason you gave me for marrying your ex-wife, the stripper?

How could I have been so stupid? What on earth was I thinking? But it's my fault for being naive, believing in the "happily ever after fairy tale" and not seeing all the signs of your fickle and constantly changing mind.

People would ask me what was I getting out of this relationship but I never could give them an answer. I could not bend any more for your self-absorbed and sometimes irrational ways. I cannot believe how you have discarded me for an illusion of this person "out there" that you believe is a better match for you but don't even know if she exists!

I don't know what I would do if I ever saw you again, especially if you were with another girl. I don't go to my favorite places anymore because I am afraid you will be there. I don't want to stand there and cry in front of anyone. It would be even more embarrassing to walk out and leave.

The phone rings and I hold my breath. You've already broken up with me twice before. I guess the difference for this third time is that I said I would NOT be seeing you later (unlike the other times when I was a fool and waited for you to miss me).

I am sorry that you have so much past baggage with Alexis that you have given up hope with me and would rather chase the invisible.

Last night I threw away the letter you wrote to me while you were visiting your parents for a month in New Hampshire. I read the 2 lines in the middle where you told me how much you loved me and how you knew I was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with because of the wonderful way you felt with me. I stopped reading it after that and threw it away. I think of that letter now, resting in the garbage bin just across the parking lot. It's worse than Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart". I almost want to go dig for it in this sweltering heat. But I won't. What would I do with it? Hang on to those lies? Send it to you so you could remember?

Maybe it's pathetic or weak but all I ever wanted was for someone to love me and treat me kindly. And maybe that sounds really bad, like I'm some abandoned animal or something. But I can't help what I want. I don't mean to sound so desperate and needy.

You even told me yourself that night (the one before it all ended) when we went to The R Bar what a great and caring person I am and how lucky my friends, like Matt, are to have me. You asked me why I was still trying to help you. I will give you the same answer: because I know how to love. Do you?