hey. i’m trying here. i really am. but what i can’t get over is that we were so so so close again this summer. but i got scared of getting hurt again, so i ran. and i’m sure that that sent some mixed signals. but you act like you hate me, like how you did when you broke up with her the last time. was this my last chance? was this the last time of you and me getting close enough to get to that place? are you moving on with her now? or just trying to get over us like i am? i genuinely think i love you. i still talk to your mom at games. you still have my sorority shirt. i still have your hat in my truck. i’ll never be able to listen to snapback again without thinking about you and that night in my truck going down the highway. you will always have a piece of me, i just don’t know if i’m going to be able to let go of that. i wanted it to be you, i really did. and i still do. but i am grappling with the fear of being hurt, of being another name on your list of girls, of being just another hookup to you. you only made moves when you were drunk really, and that got to me. you’re a chicken. i’m a chicken. we are too stubborn to show our hands, and so we continue on this cycle. i don’t go a day without thinking about you, about what you are to me, about the thousand different ways i could’ve handled it for it to go a way i wanted it to. i’ve tried. i’m actively trying. if you’re seeing this, my birthday. in seventeen days, i am going to make that call, i am going to make that decision. we’re going on five years of this clay, i’m not going into my seventeenth year still trying solve a problem from the seventh grade. i believe we could work, but i am not going to show my hand if you don’t, and i am going to have to come to terms with it. that’s just the way this tough cookie crumbles. call me. please. if anything, it’s to give me my shirt back or ask for your hat back because that new girl probably wouldn’t appreciate it. bed bugs.