Strange how I still use the "my" when I write your name, seeing as you never belonged to me, and certainly don't now. But I think I'll always use it.

I don't even hurt anymore when I see your name; you don't even seem real. The letters... C H R I S are just a symbol now of everything I suffered. The love that you let me believe would last...well, to be trite, forever. And the fear that made me so physically ill that I missed days of school to nurse it - the fear that you would die, because you always said you would, you wanted to. And the pain that cut this huge chasm through my entire existence when I realized the truth and let it hit home...the chasm that's still there, but no longer filled with you, just empty. Your name doesn't mean you anymore. It means me, my strength. My healing. When I write your name, I write my death and resurrection.

That's not to say that you left me a whole woman. I mentioned the huge void, the empty space. But I guess it's better than it being filled with anger or pain or self-pity, like it used to be; it's nothing now, just there. And numb. A glaring reminder that stares at me now that I'm on the edge of another trust, another love. I want to fall completely for M., I want to get caught up in it and love him and have no shadow hanging over my head - but I can't. And that's the purpose of this letter, I suppose. To tell you that, though I feel nothing for you anymore, there is an underlying cynicism now when I think of M., a bitterness that you put there. To tell you that I don't know whether my caution is warranted, or whether it's an unnecessary fear that you instilled in me.

I've healed the wounds from you, but I'll never look the same. And maybe you're causing me to miss out on something good, because you distorted my vision. Or maybe you're protecting me from being hurt again because you made me see more clearly. I don't know whether to thank you or resent you. And I probably never will, because I don't think I'll take a chance with M. I can't afford to widen the gap that you created, because I'll become part of the absence and become numb.

So I leave you with the knowledge that you changed me. I will probably read this letter over a thousand times and want to change it - say more, say less, say differently. But I won't rewrite it, or write anything directed to you again. I want this to be the end, at least outwardly. Inside my head, I don't think there really is an end...you take the shape of my paranoia, my distrust, and the armour that surrounds my heart.

Finally,