“If that’s how you feel, I guess there’s nothing I can do. You’re a really good person too. You deserve the best. Take care of yourself.”
I didn’t know what to do when I read that message.
What was I even expecting?
For them to explain themselves, to give a reason, or to try not to lose me?
They didn’t.
I didn’t want to believe it was all over.
My body was no longer numb.
It was burning.
My heart, my body, my soul…
No, I kept saying.
It couldn’t be over.
It shouldn’t.
I started sending them message after message.
They didn’t reply to any of them.
I hated the silence.
Once, when I told them that, they said, “Don’t worry. I talk a lot. You might even get tired of me talking.”
So what about now?
Why had they left me in the middle of this loud silence?
“I’m sorry. Please let’s talk. This story can’t end like this,” I wrote.
Finally, they replied, “If you believe it can’t end, why did you say you didn’t want to talk again?”
“I was afraid of losing you. Of being abandoned.”
I couldn’t say it.
Before we first met, I had once felt a distance in their messages.
“I don’t feel like talking right now. Can we just stay quiet for a bit?” I had written.
“Of course. But whenever you feel like talking, I’m here,” they said.
That same night, “Okay, let’s stay quiet. But are we okay? I need to know,” they wrote.
Referring to that incident, they wrote, “You’ve done something like this before. Fine. I reached out, thinking you might be hurt. But not this time. This is the second time, and I’m starting to see a pattern. You’re threatening me with your absence. And I’m not part of that. I’m really not,” they wrote.
I was crying.
After that message, silence again.
A loud silence.
“What if I call you? What if we talk? What if I explain myself…” I wrote.
“Not right now. I’m at dinner,” they said.
They didn’t send another message that night.
No.
It couldn’t be.
For the first time in my life, I felt at home.
For the first time, I belonged to someone.
I couldn’t let them go.
After all, didn’t beautiful things require effort?
At the edge of a cliff, I wanted to protect the enchanting flower, its petals already fallen, from the wind.