âTwo years and some change, isnât it strange?â
Sometimes I wonder if exclusivity was the closest thing weâd ever get to a commitment.
I asked because I was hurt, not because I thought it would save us. You lied, and somehow it wasnât the truth that hurt most. It was the dishonesty, especially since I found it out myself and knew exactly why you did it. You never promised to reciprocate. You only promised honesty, and for a while, even that disappeared. But in the end, I keep on reeling and blaming myself for this tragedy. It was my fault for being curious on finding out because of my stupid intuition and my obsession of proving myself right. If I hadnât meddled and just let the hurt do its own thing, things wouldnât crumble like it is now.
You told me you were selfish. You told me you wanted your freedom. I believed you because youâve always been honest about that part of yourself. I think thatâs what made the lie sting more. It wasnât that you couldnât love me. It was that you thought protecting your freedom was worth risking the one place that had always been safe between us.
I didnât ask you to choose me because I thought youâd come to your senses and pick me. I asked because I couldnât think of another way to stay.
I expected an excuse. A long silence. A gentle rejection. Instead, you said yes, but not without hesitation and doubt.
Now I carry a future that has nowhere to go.
Sometimes I catch myself imagining things that will never happen. The apartment weâll never share, where your shoes would stay by the door because youâre too lazy to put them away, and Iâd complain every single time without ever really minding. The taking turns in washing dishes weâll never argue over. The lazy weekends weâll never waste on the couch, delaying our trip to the gym because weâd somehow spend hours doomscrolling and doing absolutely nothing.
Our anniversary messages were never written and sent.
They remained somewhere between midnight conversations and walking trips, in laughing at each otherâs silly stories and jokes, in nights when I made you made me your own, in every âokkk see youâ that quietly pretended tomorrow would always exist. Yes, they all remained in my head.
Iâve always had a vision that Cathy and Tuna were real. But even them, they donât know theyâre waiting for a family that wonât come home. The treats still rattle in their container. The life they were supposed to wander through is one theyâll never know they almost had.
Sometimes I think about the girl you saw when you werenât seeing me.
I wonder if she made you laugh louder. If she was easier to want because she asked for less and you two also have things in common. If she taught and inspired you to be more confident, more secure, and be more of yourself. I wonder if you looked at her the way I caught you looking at the views weâre seeing whenever we go to places, quietly, without needing to say they were nice and pretty. I donât ask these questions anymore because Iâve learned that some answers donât bring closure. They only become rooms you accidentally walk back into. (please bear with my metaphors)
The cruelest part is that you still care for me.
You know whether Iâve prayed before touching my food, or you remind me to do it more than I can even remember. You check me out and ask âare you okayâ whenever I go silent. You still ask me what Iâm craving whenever we go out for dinner after the gym, and you make sure Iâm fine with it. You still make room for me in your life, just never enough to call it a lifetime.
Youâre kind in all the ways that make leaving impossible.
But maybe Iâm selfish too. Because I keep showing up.
I tell myself that if I stay close enough, eventually my heart will grow tired. That every âare you okay?â, every drive, every night spent beside you is sanding away another piece of what I feel until all thatâs left is friendship. Maybe Iâm not staying because I believe youâll love me someday.
Maybe Iâm staying because Iâm trying to survive loving you. Itâs a sloooow kind of grief, choosing the person who has already told you where your story ends.
Youâre the love of my life, and somehow Iâve become the audience instead of the partner.
Still, everyday, I answer your messages as if my heart hasnât rehearsed this goodbye a lot of times in this godforsaken notes app.
Because loving you has never been the difficult part. Itâs learning to build a home inside someone who only ever wanted to be a place I visited. Maybe one day, someone else will live in the future I used to imagine for us.
Someone else will know your Sunday mornings, your sleepy voice, the version of you that belongs to no one else. Someone else might stand beside you where I only ever stood nearby.
And Iâll probably smile when that happens. Not because it wonât hurt. But because I loved you enough to know that freedom was always the thing you chose before anything else.
So Iâll keep this little life Iâve accidentally built, this strange exclusivity that exists without a name anyone else would understand. Iâll keep laughing at your dark jokes, say a big fat âNOâ whenever you say that youâre fat, keep listening to your stories, random trivia, and even rants, pretending my heart doesnât quietly rewrite every moment into a memory of a future that never arrived.
Our apartment will just remain in my head.
Our anniversary messages will remain unsent.
Cathy and Tuna will never know why no one came home.
And maybe thatâs the saddest part of all... that the life I miss is one we never even got the chance to lose.
Apartment We Wonât Share by NIKI is the song that inspired me to write this piece. It stayed with me for quite sometime when I actually started staying over until we got into a situation where everything went slightly (or is it) downhill. And not only because it mourns a life that never happened (and will never happen), but because it made me realize Iâve been grieving one too.
titsay
jacobvanloon
yousharknotpass
gummygunk
izzy806
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
