Let's say that my life is a book.

I want to turn back to the page of the moment I met you. I want to erase everything from that point until now. I don't want your name in my book anymore.

But if I erased you, that would leave an awful lot of blank space.

And besides, you made sure that you were written in ink. You knew you were making permanent marks on me as soon as you figured out that I'd fallen for you.

So I suppose an eraser wouldn't do me much good anyway.

No, you're written in with ink. And after the pages of my happy times with you, there are several pages of ugly ink blots. The ones left by the hurt spilling out of the broken pieces of my fragile heart after you dropped it on the ground. The ones left by the words you said that essentially shattered any and all chance of me trusting you or anyone for a very long time.

After those horrible blotted stains, the pages begin to have words again. At first your name is a frequent occurrence on every page. But over time, it slowly went away until it hardly tainted the story anymore.

Nevertheless, those blots still mar the edges of those few pages.

Every time I touch the edges, every time I think about how you hurt me, I'm reminded that you're probably ignorant to the fact that those blots even exist. As far as you know, I simply turned the page after your confession and kept writing without looking back or thinking twice.

Maybe that's why I can't bring myself to let you in again. I can't bear the thought of you discovering those horrific blots, or worse, creating more of them. I told myself that the story this time would be different from the last time I was hurt. I tried so hard to write it all without you looking over my shoulder. I was suffering alone because I couldn't let you see what you'd done to me. And in shutting you out, I have shut out everyone.

And guess what? Now I don't know how to let anyone back in.

I'd give anything if I could just go back to the moment those ink blots began to spread their ugliness and rip out those pages.

But what's worse to have in my book-- pages on end of formless black ink, or the pathetic remnants of paper that would be left behind if I ripped them out?

Either way, those pages aren't beautiful.