Things I Never Said, Before I Deserted You.
Non-members can read it HERE.
You asked me once, in the dark, half-asleep, if I still wanted this. I said yes. I meant it.
Three weeks later you were standing at the door, tears and snot smeared across your face, a devastation there I’d never seen before — like if I walked through that door, you’d never see me again. I walked anyway. And felt, underneath everything, relief.
You were left wondering if any of it had been real.
It was real. That’s the part nobody believes.
Here’s what I never told you.
1. I loved you in the present tense only.
I never thought about our future — not in the way you’d expect me to. Love, for me, only existed in the room I was standing in: your laugh at dinner, your hand finding mine under the table. The second the conversation turned to “someday,” I went cold. Not because I didn’t feel it. Because the fear that rose from thinking about the future overpowered whatever love I was supposed to feel. I would have run in that moment if I could, despite how much it would hurt you. I’d breathe, and the first thought that came was how sweet independence would taste. You, in that…
