When I was 16, I had a girlfriend from school — she was a year younger than me. We barely spoke in public, but every Sunday, without fail, I was at her house. Her family fed me like I was one of their own. Her older brother rapped — I looked up to him. And her American stepbrother, born on the same day as me, became one of my closest friends. But none of that compares to what I had with her. We had something real. Something ours.

She was the first girl I ever loved — and the first person I ever hurt in a way I can’t take back.

When I left school, she still had one year left. I got a taste of freedom. Music. Weed. Dreams that felt urgent. Along the way, I met a girl who could sing, and eventually she became the mother of my first child. But in the process... I just left my first girlfriend behind. No conversation. No closure. Nothing. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t argue. I just... disappeared.

And she never confronted me. She didn’t lash out. She didn’t chase me. She simply started appearing around my new girlfriend’s circle — because we all shared mutual friends. Every time I saw her, I felt that weight. That quiet pain between us. The kind you never speak on. She didn’t make a scene. But I could feel it in her silence: “You really did this to me.”

Looking back now, it wasn’t just immaturity. It was emotional cowardice. And worse — it was narcissism in disguise.

I did love her. That’s what made it worse. It wasn’t a case of not caring — it was a case of not knowing how to care responsibly. I wanted freedom more than I wanted to grow up. And in chasing what I thought was my future, I became the villain in someone else’s story.

Years later, after surviving narcissistic abuse myself, I finally understood what I had done. I had projected onto other women the light of that one first love — but I never owned how deeply I had betrayed it. I spent years chasing the echo of someone I never properly said goodbye to. I became what I hated. And the worst part is, by the time I woke up to that truth — she was gone. Vanished from the circles, off the radar. I don’t know where she is. I just know what I did.

This isn’t a letter to get her back. It’s not even about forgiveness. It’s about owning the hurt we cause — especially when no one makes us. Because silence doesn’t equal healing. And avoidance isn’t empathy. I left her in a space that forced her to heal alone — and that’s something I’ll always carry with me.

If you're reading this — I was wrong. You did nothing to deserve that. You were the first person who loved me purely. And I just left.

To anyone else who’s ever ghosted someone they loved, or walked away without closure: don’t wait until you’re broken to realize what you did. Don’t wait until karma teaches you through pain. If you can apologize, do it. If you can’t, at least change who you are — for real this time.