Letters to Rio – July 14th, 2025

The hurt I feel pricks my lungs until it grips my chest and twists my throat. It is nights like this when I kick myself for ever believing I could bring my guard down with you – believing I could treat you unlike everyone else. You see, with my friends, I’ve built a fort around myself. I love them both from the inside and outside, but when I love, I love deeply, like a broken dam letting floods take over roads. Often, I give more than I receive. I don’t expect anything in return – or at least that’s what I tell myself – but every time a friend turns away before saying thank you, before acknowledging the care I’ve put into wrapping the gift, it breaks me. So, I put my mask back on and carry on to protect myself.

When I carry on, I forget. I erase the good and bad memories we’ve had; I reset my knowledge of them as if they were strangers I haven’t met yet. I don’t express rage often, but when I do, I let it simmer and seethe through me until it pours over quietly, burning and melting the stovetop without fire. I’m saying this because I’ve started to rely on you. I’ve begun building my time around you at the expense of my old habits and routines – because I gave this rollercoaster ride a chance; because I chose to be in it without looking back. Our last conversation was this: you miss your friends, and I miss mine. You want to move out of your town because the friends of your past now ignore you, and it’s painful; it feels meaningless for you to stay. I feel the same. And I feel guilty too, because suddenly, the fault that you don’t see the friends you’ve spent more time with than me washes over me, bathing me in discomfort. So, at the vegan restaurant where we were eating, I asked you to spend time with them. I canceled our plans so you could make time for them – so I could hang out with mine too.

That was on Saturday. Sunday came, and I went to a day party with my friends. I only knew you were in your hometown with your father. That night, you sent me an audio recording of you playing the cello – something you had never done for me before. Something we had talked about in the past, that time when you told me you would’ve been too nervous to play in front of me. Listening to it meant I got to enter a sacred space – a nook where the hidden part of you I longed to meet revealed itself. My tears almost rolled down on the train when I heard you play. It was so beautiful, and now I keep this transient, sweet memory in mind.

Come Monday – today – and I reply to you late. You respond late too. I write that I would love to call you if you’re still up. You say I can call anytime. My excitement overflows. I speed through my dinner, prepare my thoughts, and don’t try to curb an ounce of joy that I now bear. I’m in the kitchen, and my phone is charging, so I go back to the bedroom to see if you’re ready.

But you changed your mind. You’ve taken a sleeping pill because of your early exam the next day. You tell me good night and that you’ll be happy to hear from me. It’s here when the simmering rage begins. I’m disappointed in myself for believing I could treat you like a trusted love, unlike my friends – that I could count on what you say and do. But just like with them, I fall short. I’ve given more of myself again.

I am unfair for feeling this. I asked you to meet your friends, and I take responsibility for that. But I invited you to come with me for dinner with a couple of friends, and you said yes. That same night, you canceled to help a friend in need. That’s fine; I completely understand. I told you I’d love to see you on Thursday, but I prepared myself. I told you that if something came up on your end, then I’d see you on Friday. You told me you’d do your best to be there on Thursday.

Such simple words from us both – and yet my old routines and coping mechanisms rise up again, resisting, ready to fight back. The softness in me that you slowly thawed is hardening again. I thought I was ready to fully let myself go with you, to trust that I wouldn’t feel the same disappointment I’d felt with other people I loved. But my rose-colored glasses fooled me. Relationships are a test, and I’m afraid forgetting about you and the good is the only way for me to win.

I’ve cut off people I used to be friends with. They didn’t make time for me when I made time for them, and they canceled on me without making any effort to meet me. They were the weight I’m thankful to leave behind because they slowed me down. Still, I thank them for the lessons they taught me. So, I may be unfair to you because I seem to treat you like them, but please know, I am not sorry for putting myself first.