The Devil Disguised as a Jesus-Loving Lesbian

Dear Addie, may this note find you well.

I’m sure I am the last person you’d like to be receiving a letter from. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that things were left undone, as it was pretty clear where each of us stood. The thing is that I was not completely honest in my stance. And not a day has gone by since that I don’t regret not having spoken the truth to you. Lying to anyone about who you are is probably the most destructive act one can commit in a relationship. Lying to someone you love is worse, I think, and should be classified as a heinous act, as it carries the same power to assassinate as any physical means. Six years of an on-and-off-again relationship followed by four years of silence leads me to believe you have no appetite for an explanation. I have one for you, though, because there were too many things I left unsaid, too many questions I left unanswered. Regardless of time or how we left things when we did, I will never stop loving you. And if I’ve learned anything from all of this, it is that love never gives up.

That was probably the most confusing part of it all—how two people can say they love each other yet behave as if they exist in a universe outside of the definition. It makes sense to me now that your final words to me were “Stop being so angry.” I can assume a thousand reasons why you thought I was angry, assuredly none as burdensome as the real one. Perhaps this is why choosing to tell the truth can be so liberating. It’s a perilous battle to take a stand against every person, persuasion, and promise that has ever threatened to suppress who you really are and what you really love. It demands ruthless courage to speak the words that once spoken cannot ever be unheard. Surviving the anticipation that causes your heart to pound out of your chest, your lungs to restrict air, and your mind to devastatingly doubt, you’re pulled toward the one moment for which you’ve been subconsciously desperate to arrive. The most distinctive and undeniably mandatory choice: life or death. That was where I was when we left it.

Maybe if I had continued the lie, we would still be some sort of friends. I wholeheartedly considered that against carrying on the predictability of deception, being accepted for everything I wasn’t while simultaneously bearing the weight of never being known or loved for who I truly am. I was facing the greatest decision I never knew I had to make: to disown everything I thought I knew without knowing who or what I was going to lose. Tell me the truth—when you looked me in the eyes, did you not see a life tearing at the seams? Because I literally could not bear to live anymore. I was angry with the choices I had made. I was furious with the utter emptiness of false promises. And I deeply despised your loose use of the word love when you were nowhere to be found whenever I actually needed you. It’s easy to mouth the words “I love you” and “I will always be there for you,” until it requires something valuable from you, something sacrificial, to live it out. My foundation was crumbling, and this convenient, consumptive version of love was proving to be the source of the quake. I was suffocating and slipping, slowly coming to the realization that love was both the murderer and savior.

Lacking the emotional capacity to explain, I said goodbye in a text message. When a cold and distant communication didn’t faze you after all we had been through together, my anger turned to sheer sadness. I withheld the truth all these years because I knew it would have meant losing you from the start. It happened anyway, just like everything else I had compromised myself for. We were always worlds apart, orbiting around the same curiosity: why I loved you in an infinitely indescribable way. I conceded with the realization that the root of the love I wanted to give was not the love you were looking to receive. I don’t blame you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I am writing to you because I take full responsibility for my part. You had your secrecies, yet you were nothing if not consistently firm and transparent in your stance. The fact that I silently disagreed with everything you said and did while cowering as the victim and drowning in my own pile of brokenness was the furthest character from undying devotion. My love was clearly not pure; in fact, there was something wrong with it, like a disease that mortally wounded the hearts of everyone who came in contact with it.

“I am sorry” does not offer justice to years of that kind of blatant disrespect to love, which brings me to the very purpose of these letters. I will be writing to you with the truth of it all. I am by no means a writer or claim to have any special way with words. I simply promise to do my best to communicate what I could not before, hoping you have room in your heart to receive what I never got to say.

With peace and gratitude,

Chole