i gotta get this out cuz it’s eating me alive and i cant tell anyone in real life not my bestie not even my little brother like this is TOO MUCH so like it started a few years ago when i met jake at summer camp upstate right it was like two weeks of pure magic like bonfires and telling secrets under the stars and we totally clicked you know like instantly and it was amazing and then camp ended and we were like oh crap now what cuz he lives like five states away in some tiny town i never heard of and i’m here in the city with like a million people everywhere so we started doing the long distance thing and it was fine at first like we’d text all day and call every night at like 9 pm when my parents were watching some stupid reality show and i could sneak off to my room and it felt so romantic and secret and i just loved it and then like a year went by and my mom was like when are you gonna bring jake here or when are you gonna go visit him and i just kept making excuses you know like school’s too hard right now or my part-time job at the smoothie place needs me or my grandma’s sick or something stupid and i knew i was lying but i just couldn’t bring myself to say the real reason cuz it sounds so messed up the real reason is i kinda like it this way like i really do i like the video calls where i can just log off when i’m done you know like no awkward silences or him seeing my messy room or me having to pretend i like his music when he’s playing it out loud it’s just… controlled and i’m always dressed nice and i make sure my background is clean and i can just be like the perfect version of myself for an hour or two and then go back to my actual life he’s always asking like when we gonna close the distance when can i come stay for a week or when can you come here and i just freeze up every time like my stomach does these flips and i just can’t say yes i can’t even imagine him here like sleeping in my house taking up space leaving his stuff everywhere like that sounds so claustrophobic to me and i know that’s awful and i know most people would kill to have their boyfriend actually near them but for me it just feels like… too much last week he sent me this really sweet package it had like a t-shirt that smelled like him and a handwritten letter saying how much he misses me and how he dreams of us just living in the same city someday and i just felt this wave of guilt like i almost threw up i put the shirt in my closet and i haven’t worn it and i haven’t even been able to respond to his texts properly since then i just keep saying i’m busy with school but it’s not true it’s just me avoiding him i know it’s not fair to him to keep him hanging like this like he deserves someone who actually wants to be with him in real life not just on a screen but i’m so scared to break up with him because i do really like him and i don’t want to be alone you know and sometimes i think about what it would be like to just have him here to actually hug him and hold his hand but then i think about the day-to-day stuff like sharing food or dealing with his bad habits or him seeing me when i wake up with bed head and no makeup and i just… can’t do it it’s like i’ve built this whole perfect little world with him in my phone and i’m terrified of it breaking if he actually steps into my real messy life and i know i’m being a terrible person for it and i feel so much shame and like i don’t even deserve him or anyone really because i’m so messed up about this and i just don’t know what to do like do i just keep lying to him forever or do i tell him the truth and risk everything and lose him and be totally alone and feel even worse than i do now i just wish i knew how to be a normal girlfriend i just wish i wasnt like this wishing for him to be far away even though i miss him every single day it just makes no sense in my head and i cant stop it i just feel so bad typing this out like who even am i doing this to someone who’s so sweet to me and just wants to be close i’m just… stuck and it hurts so much to know i’m causing this and i can’t make it stop.