Notes from a summer where love kept pretending to exist.
I still don’t know when love begins —
or when it quietly ends.
Maybe it wasn’t the day he walked a long way beside me
just to find that silver-seat shared bike.
Maybe not when he learned the song I liked,
or when he offered to take photos of me at the museum.
That night he held me tight.
He kissed me.
The air was thick, humid, heavy.
When I sent him home, he hugged me again from behind.
Later, when I grew upset about his mixed signals,
he pinned me down and asked,
“So what are we now?”
And I didn’t know.
He told me about his ex-boyfriend —
how he almost didn’t graduate just to see him again.
I listened, quietly breaking, quietly jealous.
Then he said,
“Being official just means you can have sex without protection.”
“Hugging, kissing, even sleeping together — it doesn’t mean much.”
And something inside me fell silent.
When I left that night, he said,
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re making me feel guilty.”
I said, “Because you are.”
The next day I asked him to walk by the river.
He refused — for the first time.
He couldn’t stand my hesitation, my exhaustion,
my late-night drinking, even when I drank for him.
I tried to explain; he said, “I only care about results.”
I asked for a break,
but really, I was begging for another chance.
For half a month, I tried to love him harder —
listening to his favorite songs,
visiting the places he once liked,
posting updates he might see.
He wouldn’t let me treat him to dinner,
but he agreed to treat me.
He had a sore throat; I wanted hot pot.
When I found out, I said, “Never mind then.”
I even bought him a small panda toy.
We ate anyway.
When I offered to walk him upstairs, he said,
“If you take one step into my complex, I’ll delete you.”
“Your intentions aren’t pure.”
But I really, truly just liked him.
That night we took a self-driving shuttle,
walked by the lake,
and he kept saying he “wasn’t happy.”
The next day I bought him roses.
He said, “Don’t. It’ll only make me feel worse.”
“Don’t spend too much time on me.”
I left the flowers at his door.
I knocked. He didn’t open.
I knew he was home.
Then came the fight online.
He canceled the movie —
the surprise I’d been planning for two weeks.
And I still don’t know
when he stopped liking me.
Maybe love isn’t a moment at all,
but a series of small, fading gestures —
until one day,
you realize you’ve already been left outside of it.
