I Need Answers By Tris Westbrook

Dear ****,

Here’s a concept of love that I’ve always wondered about: would you love someone else

if they treated you the same way as your partner does now? Could someone actually have it in

them to love any person that is to that level of similarity to the person that they are with now? Is

it possible to both love that much and that little at the same time? To love so much to be able to

love any other person to the same extent but to also love your partner so little that you could so

easily leave?

I wonder if you were like that with me. It would be interesting to know if you really did

love every other person as much as or more than me. Would you have rather been with that

coworker that always gave me bad vibes? Your close friend that clearly didn’t see you as much

more than an acquaintance? A distant acquaintance that you claimed to never talk to? My best

friend that you swear you didn’t like but I saw how you talked to her? You were far too friendly

with them to not have at least considered being with them instead.

Why did you try to convince me that you never saw them this way? You gave me no

proof that you were even interested in them, but you also never gave me any proof that you

weren’t either.

Would you have rather been with any one of them just because they showed you that

smallest glimmer of kindness? That bit of glimmer that you had rarely received before you even

met me? Would you run that way if you ever got the chance? Would you throw everything away

if they were vaguely the same?

Why did you have to leave so harshly? What made you swear at me in front of your

parents just days before Thanksgiving and kick me out of your house the next day? I knew that

things had changed, but I don’t know when you grew to hate me. Was it the day that you seemed

to stop caring about how your actions affected me? We knew each other for over two years, and I

guess that meant nothing?

I wonder if you treat your current partner the same way as you did me. Do you make

them feel like they’re crazy every time that you do something that you know that you shouldn’t

be doing? Do they question your loyalty too? Do you always put their feelings to the side and

care about everyone else more than them? Or do you treat them the way that I always begged to

be treated but apparently just wasn’t good enough for?

Do they treat you the way that I did, and do you love them?

Are you going to hurt them how you hurt me?

I don’t know what your answer is, but I know that I would have never done to you what

you did to me. I could never be so heartless. But really,

Would you love someone else if they treated you the same way that I did?

I wish I could hate you,