Fact or Fiction (Creative Non-Fiction)

Was it true when you said you loved me? Was it true when you said that you cared and that no matter what happened you would look out for me?
Since you said those words, a lot has happened. I have grown and I have changed. A lot has happened since you were last here. The scar on my temple on the left side of my head is no longer there. It was deep once, remember? it’s completely faded now. I’m no longer a child and not a teenager, too. You didn’t see me then when I finished school. Oh! how glad I was when I finished those exams and packed away those books for good. Didn’t ace them all but I did pretty well. I graduated too. Did you know I would do that? Did you know I could?
I’ve done pretty well considering things, you know. So much has changed since that time. Was it real when you cried because you knew we would soon be separated?
I’ve cried a lot since then. I’ve shed tears of pain, shame, regret, desperation, abandonment, injustice, love and good ol’ hurt. What were yours for? Have you cried for love? You? Me?
And in the years we haven’t seen and haven’t spoken I cried tears not of hurt or pain or anything like that. They were tears of things I wanted to say to you, but couldn’t say because you weren’t there. Just everyday things, you know. There were things I wanted to show you and then I realized that you were not there. O, well! – And there were things I wanted to ask you, you know, about boys and stuff and if this out fit was pretty, and what you thought if I did this. But I found someone else, anyway. There was always someone else. There will always be someone else. That’s what they said and they were right. As long as I lived there would be someone else.
Uncomplicated procedure...Do it all the time. Nothing to it. I’d be fine. That’s what they said and so it was. Maybe I underestimated the value of your position. Maybe I didn’t quite understand the time it would take to fully heal. To get back to shape. To be whole again, that’s another thing.
The gapping wound I feel on the inside gushing out wells of tears, did you feel that too in these years we haven’t seen?
Stitches in my heart and on my chest the surgical marks from where you were cut out. They couldn’t save us both. It was me or you. They couldn’t keep us together. I tried, I really tried, but they couldn’t keep us both. So, they let you go. I let you go and now the place you once held is empty.
But I just have one more question; was it Fact or Fiction when you said you would always be there to protect, to provide and to be my hero.

(This piece is about going through a loss and moving on from there. Whilst it is a personal piece I wanted to write it in such away that everyone who's had a loss because of death, abandonment, or a break up could relate to. Separation sometimes feels like recovering from a bad and almost irrecoverable injury. Yes, you find new ways to cope, but you always wonder what if things had turned out different generating a host of questions you don't have answers for. It's my first post on here and I'm thinking I'm going with the keeping it real approach to blogging on steemit.)