I still remember that last evening at the wood mill. There was something fragile in the air between us, something unspoken and trembling. He sounded nervous when he finally said, almost too casually, “Yeah, well maybe I’ll see you next week.”
I left without answering right away, letting the silence stretch between us, partly because I wanted the moment to settle, and partly—if I’m being honest—because I wanted him to sit in that uncertainty too. Later, I texted him, asking if he wanted to see me again. But almost as soon as I sent it, the question rose up in me like a wave I could no longer outrun: What am I doing here? What am I doing with this person? Is he truly interested in me?
And the cruelest part was that somewhere along the way, against my better judgment, I had begun to fall for him.
Later that night, I brought it all up again, hoping perhaps for clarity, or courage, or some small confession that would make the ache worth it. Instead, I was met with the soft, familiar disappointment of he wasn’t ready. He still wanted to be friends, he said. He still wanted the closeness, the comfort, the cuddling—the tenderness without the promise. It felt like one of those quiet, selfish arrangements where one person gets to keep everything they want, while the other is left starving for what was never truly being offered.
I told him plainly what I wanted. I told him I saw something between us, something that could have been real. I admitted how foolish I felt, how I had let myself hope, how I had placed my heart in the hands of something I already feared was doomed from the start.
The next morning, I woke and tried to leave. And once again, he offered me that same almost-gentle, almost-meaningless promise: “I’ll see you when you get back into town.”
Once again, I answered with silence. But this time, when I walked out of the room, it felt as though I was leaving behind not just him, but the ghost of something that might once have lived there—something fragile that had quietly died by morning.
On the drive home, I wanted to cry. My mind turned on itself in the familiar way, cruel and relentless. I thought about all the ways I could change, all the ways I might become easier to love. I thought about the shame I still carried from my last relationship, how it clung to me like a shadow. I thought about that terrible feeling of not being enough.
And then, somewhere in the middle of all that hurt, something inside me hardened into truth. Fuck it. I had been honest. I had been real. What I gave came from the deepest, most unguarded parts of me, and that mattered. I do not want to belong to someone who only reaches for me when I am convenient, when I can serve as comfort, as distraction, as a body to hold without ever truly being chosen. I want to be loved with intention. I want someone who adores me for exactly who I am, who sees me clearly and still wants, wholeheartedly, to stay.
It hurt then, and it still hurts now. But little by little, I am trying to find my way through the wreckage, trying to understand what comes next.
I want to change. But if I’m honest, I don’t yet know how. I carry so much anxiety with me each day, so much restless fear and tenderness, and sometimes I don’t even know how to hold myself together.