Para o rapaz que foi apanhado com a mão no frasco das bolachas: Não culpes a bolacha

Oh, you’re mad at me I hear. I made things difficult for you, did I? Am I supposed to apologize? Sabes o que fizeste, certo? Fizeste batota e depois foste apanhado. I didn’t try to cheat on my wife. I didn’t track down my high school sweetheart nearly a decade after I broke her heart to apologize. I was minding my own fucking business. Living my life. You, a distant memory accompanied by a bad taste in my mouth. The taste of pain, betrayal and desperation.

Eras um sonho de liceu tornado realidade que se transformou num pesadelo. Entraste na minha vida como uma fantasia. Capitão da equipa de futebol e da equipa de basquetebol. Inteligente, carismático, bonito, charmoso e engraçado. Tudo isso! O tipo de atração que é inegável. Deixaste-me apaixonar por ti e depois escolheste-a. Depois, em vez de me deixares ir, agarraste-te a mim até eu me tornar inconveniente para ti. Depois, finalmente, livraste-te de mim da pior maneira. Tu sabes o que fizeste. E depois isso assombrou-te. Durante oito anos, perseguiu-te. Perguntaste aos nossos amigos sobre mim, ficaste a saber como eu estava e esperaste. You waited until I was perfectly fine. When the ghost of who you were to me had long since settled in my mind, and then you decided to assuage your own guilt. At the expense of my heart—and had I let you in—possibly my future.

Quando ouvi a tua voz, voltei a ter quinze anos. Quando me disseste que me amavas, a jovem rapariga que havia em mim ficou radiante. Foi como se o tempo tivesse desaparecido e tivéssemos voltado a ser nós. Todas as coisas que eram óptimas em sermos nós. Mas as mulheres adultas chamaram-me de merda. Tretas de merda. Nós éramos uma mentira. Éramos uma ilusão that disappeared when you returned to your girlfriend and pretended that we were just friends, and I pretended that it didn’t kill me. We were nothing more than me idolizing you to the point that I couldn’t see you were using me. I gave you all the things you were missing from your relationship, and then you got to go back to it while I was left twisting in the wind until the next time you needed what you needed from me. Eu era o teu lugar seguro. A tua pessoa. Mas ELA era a tua mulher. E ali passei 10 anos, à espera que acordasses e visses que eu podia ser tudo para ti.

You can pretend that you didn’t know that I LOVED you, that we were something that we weren’t. Podes reescrever a história na tua própria cabeça para que a tua personagem pareça mais compreensível. Mas a verdade é que foste egoísta. Foi egoísta na altura e é egoísta agora. After everything you put me through, and you put me through some shit that could fill up a novel… you don’t even deserve to be forgiven. But I did forgive you. A long time ago. When I stopped loving you. When I looked long and hard at the situation and determined that you did what you thought you needed to for yourself and your family, I let it go. Mudei-me para tão longe past it that I didn’t even hate you anymore.

Durante todo esse tempo, deixei-te sozinho. Para viveres a tua vida com a mulher que escolheste. Para construíres uma família com a criança que criaste enquanto dormias comigo e não usavas, conscientemente, métodos contraceptivos. Mesmo quando me deixaste descobrir por outra pessoa que o teu filho tinha nascido, duas semanas depois da última vez que estive contigo e eu não fazia ideia que estavas a semanas de te tornares pai. Deixei-te em paz. Despite how much you hurt me, I didn’t try to hurt you back, or shatter your world like you did mine. I left you alone—to marry her, have another child with her, raise those children with her. I left you alone. That’s what you do when you actually love somebody. Deixa-os ir. You let them live their life, even if it’s not with you because you sincerely want the best for them… even when they have given you no reason to show such loyalty.

Portanto, agora, Senhor Deputado, NÃO pode ficar zangado comigo. I did NOTHING to you, aside from express what effect your appearance in my life (8 years after you extinguished yourself from it in the cruelest possible way) was having on my psyche. And just to be clear about what that effect was, for starters, I cried for three full days. I called in sick to work for two. My mom came to visit me, got off the plane, took one look at me and thought I was vomiting all day. Nope, just crying. Non-stop. Because mom, you remember that time you told me, “That guy doesn’t love you. He is not your friend, and you need to leave him alone.” Remember that? Yeah, well, apparently he really DID love me. So there. See. More tears. Some mom rage. Reminders of alllllllll the things he did that were terrible. Like I forgot. That was the start of it.

Depois a incerteza quando tentaste dizer-me que era a mim que amavas e com quem querias estar. O desejo profundo em mim de acreditar em ti. A necessidade de que fosse verdade. Para validar que tudo o que aconteceu era apenas parte de uma história de amor muito retorcida que iria terminar felizmente contigo e comigo a saltar para o pôr do sol. The months of anguish as I heard from you sporadically at best, but you kept swearing you loved me, and wanted to be with me, and you just want to see me… and me saying no. Wanting to say yes. Missing you, wanting you, aching for something that I had resigned to myself would never be. Until finally I was like, fuck you in a flurry of texts… seemingly out of nowhere. Just expressing how selfish you’ve been, and how much you’ve really hurt me over the years. I was entitled to that. At the very least. So you don’t get to be mad at me because your wife saw that. That’s not my fault, nor was it my intention. I’ll be honest though, I feel bad for her… but you? Podes ir-te lixar. You’re mad at me? Go on.