When I first met Michael Williams, my lungs were never full. I was always breathless around him. I caught myself staring at him whenever we were together. But falling hard for a broad shouldered, fit, and strong football player was dangerous.
I knew him for almost three months before we started dating. And in those three months, not once did I see the horror I was going to be in for. I didn’t know that in just five months, I’d come to hate the boy I had been so heads-over-heels for.
Mike ignored me. He would take me to his house, hang out with me for a little, and then ignore me. He would tell me that he loved me, that I was his world. And then he would go back to ignoring me. Every time he would ignore mem I would push myself farther and farther into myself. I started to think that I was doing something wrong, that I was making him stop loving me.
I got to the point of being so angry and frustrated with the fact that he was ignoring me, that I found myself thinking about breaking up with Michael. I found myself realizing that I didn’t need the perfect football player to make my life better. I would ask Mike if he knew simple things about me, I would ask him if he knew what my favorite color was, my favorite movie, anything and everything.

And then I realized that I was dating someone that I didn’t love.

Breaking up with Mike was the best decision I had made in a long time. When I ended my relationship with him, I cut myself off from all that he was. He was like an addiction, something that I couldn’t get away from. He would keep pulling me in, telling me that he would change and things would be better. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay with him. I deserved someone who was going to love me.
I felt human again. That feeling was so odd to me, something I hadn’t felt in over seven months. I could feel my heart beating again, air rushing into my lungs. The heavy weight that had been pressing into my chest that I was too used to feeling was finally gone.

All of me felt better when we stopped talking all together, I realized that even though I felt his girlfriend, he would look at me the way that I wanted him to. I played a supporting role in his heart and it was hard to become the starring role in his life when I wasn’t number one to begin with.