This is my last letter to you. You were right to leave and go on with your life. We weren't good for each other anymore. We aren't good for each other anymore. I should have let you go when you told me you were no longer in love with me, but I was too scared and weak to be alone. Now I'm happy and strong. I've gone on with my life and will continue to be happy and strong. I hope you are happy too. I wish nothing but the very best for you. I wish for you to find someone who can love you how you need to be loved. I wish for you to have all your dreams fulfilled. That person will not likely be me.
Don't forget how incredible of a human being you are, may you be blessed and loved all of your life. Godspeed, Bilbo.
The last few days have been weird. I go to text you and then remember I can’t. Not because you’re on the other side of the world, but because you don’t want me. It’s been almost two months.
Two months of pain and heartbreak. Two months of silence. Two months of wishing I wouldn’t wake up. Two months of not knowing why.
I have good days now, but they’re still plagued with thoughts of you. Everything reminds me of you and they always will. I’m getting closer to being able to move back home. I’m still so lonely. I’ve made new friends and grown closer to others, but none of them are you. No one can ever take your place in my life. And that’s okay. It’s okay for me to not want anyone else. It’s okay for me to want you still, to hope that you’ll come back. What’s not okay is if I let it consume me and don’t move forward with my life.
Boy do I have a story for you today. Like I said yesterday, you're still the first one I want to tell. You'd love it in the "oh my god that's the dumbest shit I'm pissed" way. Store Leader pulled a great one today. Really threw my service dog in my face. Wish I could tell you. Wish you cared. I want to message you the whole thing so you know. But. I'm not supposed to talk to you anymore. That's what you want. That's what my therapist said I need to do, so. Here I am. Wishing and hoping again. It'll be a story to tell you if, no, when, we talk again. I'll remember it. Maybe not all the details, but enough to still get it all across. I hope you're well. I hope you're happy. I love you. Always.
I had my first appointment yesterday. It went well. I liked her a lot, thank you for helping me find her. I think she’s going to help me get better. It’s going to be a very long, difficult road to recovery. I have to do something very painful to get better. I have to move on. I agreed to that approach. To better myself for myself and my future and not to better myself in hopes of getting you back. The latter is what I want, but if you never come back, then what would be the point of getting better? Why should I put in so much effort to get better if you’re not coming back? That’s why I chose the former. There is no certainty that you’re coming back, that you’ll ever talk to me again. The only certainty that I have is myself. I have to get better. I have to be at peace with myself.
When I get better, it will no longer matter if you come back or not, I will have done it for myself. I still hope you will come back to me, some day, but I cannot live my life in that what if. My heart will always be yours, Avery. I am sorry for all I put you through. I didn’t love you the right way, the way you deserve to be loved, I could now and I definitely can in the future when I’m even better. I know it. But it’s okay if you never come back. You don’t owe me anything just because I love you. I don’t owe you anything. My love and my heart are yours because I gave them to you, my soul made promises lifetimes ago and it is still trying to fulfill them. And that’s okay too. I don’t know if I will ever reclaim my heart and love from you, I don’t want to, not right now. I am better. I will be better.
She told me to try to not message you anymore. I’ve gone over a week now, which is one day better than I had been doing. I’m trying very hard. It’s probably what you want anyway. To be left alone. To be able to forget about me. That’s okay. I was toxic. We became toxic. We have to become better on our own. I really don’t want to not talk to you. It sucks. Even still, a month and a half later, all I want to do is talk to you about my day. You’re still the first person I want to tell anything and everything to. I still see memes or articles or pictures or whatever and think, “Bilbo would love that. I should send it to- oh. Right.” Every day hurts. My heart is heavy with the pain of your absence. I don’t know why you did this, why you’re doing this. I’ll probably never know. There’s no point in wishing now. My wishes don’t come true. I always ask for the impossible. I always ask for the return of those who have left me. My father. You.
She asked me if I believed there could be more than one soulmate. Or at least others that could be just as important or whatever. I said it’s possible to find someone else, but no one would ever be able to bring about the happiness I felt with you. The same comfort. The same affection. It would always be less. No one can compete with a soulmate. I don’t think it would be fair to be with anyone else, I could not give them what they seek. My soul would never feel at peace, it would always be searching for you and your embrace. You may think that’s stupid and I should just get over you and find someone else. Someone better for me. What you seem to fail to see is there is no one better than you for me. There is no one better than you, ghivashel. You shine brighter than the sun. You are good and kind and gentle. I know we had problems. I know I was an ass. I know what I did to make us not work. I know it all and I’m fixing myself so I don’t ruin any other relationship in my life with friends or family. So I don’t ruin myself.
You are the living embodiment of sunshine and flowers and just all that is good in this world. Which is why, though I wasn’t supposed to look, I know you’re not as happy as you’re trying to make people, including yourself, believe. I saw your new profile pic. You’re eyes are not shining. Your smile seemed forced. Maybe no one else noticed that. Maybe you ignored that. I don’t know. It probably has more to do with you being away from your family than it does with me, but there’s a part of me that hopes you miss me. There’s a part of me that thinks maybe you are hurting just as much as I am, but you’re hiding it, burying it away, forcing yourself to not talk to me. I don’t know. I’m stupid and blind, that I know. I know I’m just a little lost, kicked puppy. Loyal to a fault. Giving unconditional love to the person who left me out in the cold. This loyalty will be the death of me. My loyalty to you is causing me agony every day you don’t speak to me. That’s my own problem to deal with and get over, I understand. My loyalty and love is unwavering, if you had any doubts. I know you, Avery, you are not happy. I want you to be happy, love. Whatever you need to do to make that a reality, do it. I have nothing negative to say to you or about you. I have no ill will towards you. All I have is unconditional love and support for you. You know that, though. You’ve known that through every lifetime. I failed at showing and proving it in this one. But if, in this lifetime, your happiness means casting me out, then so be it. I will survive, I want you to live, to truly live. You are beautiful, so beautiful, and so strong and brave and wonderful, smart and funny and caring and loyal as well. You deserve everything your heart desires, I hope you get it all.
You still won’t talk to me. Even now when I need you because a family member is dying, you won’t respond. Am I less than nothing to you now?
Gandalf came to see me last night. She held me as we watched TV and slept with me so I wouldn’t be alone. It helped me, to have affection again. I still wished it was you. She knows I did. It’s slightly painful to even call her Gandalf anymore. Without you, Bilbo, there is no company. We’re all estranged now. It’s just me and Gandalf and Dwalin. Galadriel is gone. Radaghast is upset. Legolas and Elrond are busy and have their lives to deal with. Elrond helps as much as he can, I know you know that. I have yet to reach out to Aragorn and Arwen, but it doesn’t seem right to use their names anymore. Not since you’ve been gone. It all began with you and I, ghivashel. Thorin and Bilbo. A king and his consort. I would give you my whole kingdom, if I had one in this lifetime. I would follow you across the world to apologize, as I once did, had I the means to accomplish it.
It doesn’t matter now. Someone must be talking to you, telling you to ghost me. This is not you. You were never cruel. You were the kindest person I’d ever met. Someone who loathes me must be whispering in your ear. It’s easier to believe than this cruelty being of your own design.
I don’t think you’re ever coming back into my life, not as long as someone is filling your head with lies and reminding you of someone I no longer am, someone I was already killing when you left. There’s nothing I can do about it. If you choose to believe I can never change. If you choose to believe someone’s perception of me that doesn’t even know me. If you choose to believe the lie that we’re not soulmates, not meant to be, when you know firsthand that we are soulmates. Well. There’s nothing I can do about it. All I can do is better myself, as I have been, for myself and for the people who stand by me.
The people who don’t abandon me when I need them most. The people who don’t give up on me because they don’t want to deal with it right now. Dwalin and Gandalf and Elrond have not, and will not, abandon my side. They will not abandon yours either, should you ever need them. I choose my company carefully, darling. I choose people who will help me better myself, stand by me, and tell me the truths I don’t want to hear or listen to me when I just need to vent. All three were sounding boards for me during our times of trouble. Do you know what none of them ever did? None of them told me to leave you, to ghost you or “fuck her.” Do you know why? They respect me and they respect you. They gave me advice on how to better myself and the situation and said they were here for me and would support whatever decisions I made. That they hoped we would work it out and grow and be better for each other. Never. Never did they belittle you, try to turn me against you or fill my head with “you’re better off without her, she’s holding you back, she’s a bitch.” I know someone in your circle who did, and probably still does, the opposite. And if I’m right, I hope you see the truth about them before it’s too late. You deserve better friends. You deserve more friends like Elrond and Gandalf. Elrond is still trying to be there for you too, but you keep pushing him away. He’s worried about you, Bilbo. We all are, but there’s nothing we can do for you if you push us away. You’ve cut me off, I got the message loud and clear now. But don’t cast them aside as well. Gandalf was always there for you at Erebor and even here. She took care of you when I was gone or so I didn’t find out you drank my whiskey or took too many pills with alcohol or whatever. You threw her into a lie about my Fireball and she went with it so that you would feel safer. You knew I’d be upset. I was never mad about you drinking my alcohol, I was worried for your safety. But, that’s the past. Doesn’t matter now. All that matters from the past now are the memories of us being happy and in love. I don’t care about mistakes made or wrongs done, they were lessons.
I wish you would give me closure or something. I don’t know. I wish you’d give me the chance to show you I’m getting better. My appointment is Thursday, I hope it goes well. It hurts that I don’t have you to talk to after it now. It made it easier to agree to go and make the appointment when I knew I had you to support me. But it’s done and I need it for myself. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t think I’ve ever truly known, not in this life. Finding myself is what I have to do now, without you. It will help make me better. It will hurt. But I will get better. I refuse to stay stagnant. I refuse to stay where I am, going nowhere with no dreams or ambitions. You left me broken and bleeding on the floor, but I will pick myself up and put myself back together. I don’t need you anymore.
I don’t need you. I still want you. That won’t ever change, unfortunately. I still love you. But I can’t, I can’t allow your ghost to haunt me and keep me from living my life. I can’t allow your ghost to keep me from being successful. I deserve better. So do you. Should you ever come back into my life, know I will not be the same person you left. You would be meeting me for the first time again, though my heart will always be yours, my mind will be new, better. I hope you’re better too when we next meet.
