It's the first Monday since the last time I saw him, and as I wrap up and get ready to go home, I realize I'll have no one to routinely send OOTDs or bathroom selfies to. I'll have to break routine, just when I was getting comfortable with the idea of routine and constants.

Everything's still the same; it's still difficult to sleep before noon and I still mindlessly browse the Internet to tire my eyes. An attempt to fill the void, really. Most days though I just lay wide awake. Next thing I know, it's already 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I only have four hours left to sleep before I have to report for work again. It's the last week of January, and my skin is starting to break out. I suppose it's probably because my period will be starting next week. There'll be no one to tell me I'm still acceptable--beautiful, even--in case a zit grows on my face. Not that I'm in dire need of external validation. I've always brushed it off, but it never hurt to have someone else appreciate my existence. Because there are moments it gets difficult to do it alone. I can only hope right this moment that I'll cope better when that day comes. Or nights. It mostly happens when it's dark in my room and I'm alone.

There's even no more reason to get into Pokémon Go again, though that won't take away my love for walking. There's one good thing, I guess. If not for the ashfall, maybe I'd have walked home today. Maybe I'll bring a mask tomorrow and try.

Part of the aftermath is this hyper-awareness of my surroundings because the bubble I once was in has burst. Now I'm reminded of what I don't have anymore when I see a woman give her partner a peck on the lips as thank-you for taking her to work today. Then he smiles at her as he rushes off on his motorcycle. 

I don't know anymore. Things are still a little difficult to accept. They say it gets easier to hate the person, but I can't find it in me to hate someone I once loved the most. Maybe right now he still has my heart. Maybe right now he's still the one I've loved the most aside from myself. The idea of him and love still breaks me, but I can't cry in South Station right now. Crazy, but for a second or two, I wished he hugged and kissed me to try to apologize. I wished he screamed, "Surprise!" and handed me a bouquet of random flowers. Anything grand. Anything else but this.

Should I have breakfast or maybe skip it to lose weight? Should I grow out my bangs and try a new look? But side swept isn't anything new to me, as I've had that haircut since I was a kid. What for, anyway? Pretending to get into something new doesn't change anything. It'll just be a distraction, and all these will come back when things start to quiet down and I'm alone with my thoughts, as if they never left.

I do feel like a floating sandwich on outer space, out of place and completely useless, an odd sight. He said he was going to be the panini and meet me halfway. Now that that panini's gone, and I'm back to listlessly roaming this vastness on my own.

I still can't bring myself to hate him, and maybe I never will. What he did was infuriating, but that emotion isn't something I carry in my heart. That anger I feel is mostly a fleeting feeling that is then overcome by loneliness and hurt. My stupid mind still wishes things didn't turn out like this. My stupid mind still feels this pang of hurt when I see him trying to work things out with the other girl, because he never did that with me. I guess he got too tired of us, and that's okay. At the end of the day, his affection only stems from his fear of being alone and having no one else but himself. But even trying to drill that in my head doesn't take away the heaviness in my chest.

It hurts all the same.

Russel,

I don’t want to see the day when you two will be happy, my love living his best life, because it pains me to think that that one heck of a guy isn’t with me… And I wanted to be with that person. I’ve loved you in all your imperfections and all that you are and all that you are not. Now you have a future to build with Paula, and… You will never comprehend the depth of my love for you. You had to follow the script; you had to follow the wrong script…

It was in the tiniest things, then they all towered and manifested into something greater than Thanos’s glove, and it hurt when I got slapped by it in the face. It was in the inconsistencies in your story—how you told me James Reid’s “Cool Down” was shitty because it gave off fuckboy/softboi vibes, then I hear from Paula that you told her it sounds cool. It hurts that your mom knew about her more than me, and the way you wanted me to meet your mom? I was not too keen on meeting anyone’s parents, but you said you wanted me to, so I said I’ll think about it and then I’ll tell you. You wanted to pretend I was going to be in the same place as you guys by accident, and then you’d say, “Motha, what a surprise.” And that we broke up in September? Weren’t we just pretending to be Instagram baddies on November 30? Didn’t you just say you missed me while I was away in Baguio? Weren’t you just crying in my arms when we snuck in your cousin’s room that first weekend of January this year?

Going through our entire exchange and then realizing that you’ve been lying all this time hurts, but I’m too at a loss to even get mad at you. You may probably not understand how you’ve hurt me because, really, you’re okay. I never saw a hint of remorse in your eyes the last time we talked. Besides, you were the one who snagged another girl to inflate your ego. Your friends say you were happiest with me, but if you were, then how come I got cheated on? I’m sorry I’m not enough for you, but I know I never failed to remind you to break up with me if you don’t want me anymore. I know I’m not a perfect girlfriend; it was a challenge to open up, to start a relationship and remain in one. Sex was almost out of the equation for me, too. I’m sorry I’m not changing that for you, but you could have just told me that maybe it was already too much.

It would have been easier to forgive the sex. You might have only gotten drunk with the other frat guys. You might have only gotten cornered into fucking someone. Maybe I’d care less had you done it after we fought and I told you to go fuck someone else. Yeah, maybe that would’ve been easier to forgive. But I asked if I could take that back and you said yes, that there was no one else, and that there won’t be because that’s downright stupid if you did that. It stings how she was every bit your girlfriend as much as I was. She knows you like the back of her hand as much as I do (with mine). There was nothing set aside for me that I could call my own, or ours; not even one story, or a single inch of skin in your body that only I could touch.

You lied through your teeth and assured me that you were committed in this relationship, and despite everything that was happening last December, I wanted to push on and keep this alive, because that was commitment, right? You don’t give up just like that and you try to work it out. I told you I was starting to lose interest in everything, including the relationship, but I held on, because I was willing to take it as one of our down days. No relationship is perfect, right? You shouldn’t have wasted my time, because now, all I think about is how you were out there fucking someone else, and I’m sure it was hella good (hell yeah, you’d say). You must have been satisfied with all those times she showed you herself and I couldn’t. It must have been worth every apology and lie when you jacked off on the image of her body, telling me how you were sorry that you’ve been sleeping a lot, because I’ll never be that girl for you, anyway. Because I can never give you that. I was thinking of you, and there you were fucking her over and over. I was making plans for Valentine’s, worrying if I could make it on time, and you were fucking someone else. God, you were fucking someone else… And you said you weren’t. That’s all I could think of right now, that you were fucking someone else, and how it was easy for you to do this to me. You were fucking her, and you were fucking enjoying it, and that’s fucking hard to get out of my head.

This feels like writing to the wind, because I know that even if you come across this, my words will only go in one ear and out on the other. You don’t give a rat’s ass about me. Maybe you never really did. You’re just sad you’re on house arrest now. You’re only guilty, because people say that you did us dirty, but you can’t realize the gravity of what you’ve done on your own accord. Now, I’ll just be one of those crazy exes in your sob stories, and I gave you what I could even when I don’t have much.

I was nothing but a feeble attempt to fill the void in you.

And I loved you goddamned well, in all the mess and shit that I am.