Promises Always Broke

I thought we would be together forever.

Ryan wasn’t just my boyfriend—he was my best friend before anything else. We met when we were just kids, two awkward teenagers who somehow found comfort in each other. He was the kind of person who made you feel safe just by being there. We talked for hours about everything and nothing, laughing at our own stupid jokes, dreaming about the future as if we had control over it.

And for a while, I truly believed we did.

We made promises—college together, road trips, a life that was ours. We swore that no matter what, we’d never let anything come between us. I remember the day we stood under the big oak tree at the park and carved our names into the bark: Ryan & Me, forever. I ran my fingers over the letters and smiled, believing with all my heart that it was true.

But forever isn’t always real.

Senior year came too fast. We were supposed to be excited, to plan our future together, but everything started to feel heavy. Ryan got accepted into his dream college—three states away. I was proud of him, of course I was, but I also felt something else, something I was too afraid to name at the time. Fear.

I wanted to stay close to home. My family needed me, and honestly, I wasn’t ready to leave everything behind. When I told Ryan, he smiled, kissed my forehead, and told me we would figure it out.

And I believed him.

For a while, we held onto that hope. We told ourselves distance didn’t matter, that love was strong enough to survive anything. And maybe for some people, that’s true. But for us, it was the beginning of the end.

At first, nothing seemed different. We still talked every night, still texted each other first thing in the morning and before bed. But slowly, without either of us realizing it, something started to change. The late-night talks got shorter. The texts became fewer. He started taking longer to reply, and when he did, his messages felt distant, like he was somewhere else entirely.

I told myself I was imagining it. That he was just busy. That everything was fine.

But deep down, I knew it wasn’t.

One evening, under the same oak tree where we had made our promises, I finally asked him.

“Are we okay?” My voice was small, almost afraid of the answer.

Ryan hesitated. That hesitation told me everything.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice quieter than I had ever heard it.

Something inside me cracked. “You don’t know?”

He looked down at his hands, like he couldn’t bear to meet my eyes. “It’s just… I love you, I do. But I don’t think love is enough anymore.”

I felt the world tilt beneath my feet.

“Not enough?” My voice broke. “Ryan, we promised each other—”

“I know,” he said, his voice thick with something I didn’t want to understand. “But things are different now.”

I shook my head, desperate to hold onto him, onto us. “Nothing has to change, Ryan. We can still—”

He finally looked at me then, and I wished he hadn’t. Because in his eyes, I saw it. The truth. The love that had once been so strong between us was slipping away, and no matter how much I held on, it wouldn’t stop.

“You’re letting go,” I whispered, more to myself than to him.

His face crumpled. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But he already had.

Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to cry in front of him. Not yet. “So that’s it? After everything? You’re just… giving up on us?”

He didn’t answer. And that silence shattered me more than any words ever could.

I had spent so long believing that love meant forever. That if we wanted it badly enough, we could make it work. That as long as we loved each other, nothing else mattered.

But I was wrong.

Love isn’t always enough.

I didn’t beg him to stay. I wanted to, but I knew it wouldn’t change anything. Instead, I just stood there, staring at the boy I had loved with everything I had, realizing that no amount of love could make someone stay if they had already decided to leave.

And Ryan had decided.

The last thing he said before walking away was, “I’m so sorry.”

And then he was gone.

I stayed under that oak tree for a long time, tracing my fingers over our carved names. I had once believed that those words—Ryan & Me, forever—meant something. Now, they were just scars on a tree, much like the ones he left on my heart.

Ryan left for college that fall. I watched him drive away, and I knew then that I would never be the same. We texted a few times after that, but the messages felt forced, like we were both pretending to be people we no longer were. Eventually, they stopped altogether.

And just like that, the boy who had once been my entire world became nothing more than a memory.

Some nights, I still dream about him. About the way he used to look at me, like I was the only person that mattered. About the way we used to sit in his car for hours, talking about nothing but feeling everything. I wake up reaching for a hand that’s no longer there, and for a few seconds, I forget that he’s gone.

Then reality crashes down, and I remember.

I still visit our oak tree sometimes. I run my fingers over the rough bark, over the letters we once carved with so much hope. I wonder if he ever comes back here, if he ever thinks about me the way I still think about him.

I wonder if he ever regrets leaving.

But I’ll never know.

All I know is that I loved him. And I still do, in a way that lingers, even when the person is long gone.

But love isn’t always enough.

And forever… forever doesn’t always last.