After we started seeing each other again, I thought it would feel better.
Like maybe the time apart had shifted something.
Maybe this time, I wouldn't have to beg for closeness.
Maybe this time, he'd choose me.
But it didn't feel like relief.
It felt like balancing glass on my chest.
I stopped saying too much.
I stopped asking for anything.
In short… I became avoidant too,
not because I wanted to be,
but because I didn't know how else to survive this version of us.
Every time I was with him,
I smiled a little too quickly.
Laughed even when something wasn't funny.
Held my breath before asking questions, just to avoid hearing,
"You're doing too much again."
I was so scared of being abandoned again that I became smaller.
Softer.
More adaptable.
I wanted to be loved, but I didn't want to be left.
We still saw each other.
We still touched.
We still shared food, silly videos, tired morning moments.
But I knew I wasn't being myself anymore.
I was being whatever version of me felt safest to him.
And that scared me.
I remember lying beside him one night.
He made tea, as usual.
I held the cup in both hands and stared at the steam, thinking:
I love him, and it's killing me.
Because nothing is heavier than feeling unwanted in someone's arms.
It wasn't just walking on eggshells.
It was loving on them.
Trying to build a future with someone who wouldn't even give me a title.
And I knew, deep down,
that something soft and beautiful in me was bruising quietly.
Something gentle in me was dying quietly.
But I stayed anyway.
Not because I didn't know better
but because I didn't know how to stop wanting him yet.
Sometimes, I'd replay our earliest conversations in my head,
the late-night ones when everything felt light and open.
Back when I still believed I could be enough.
Before the silence.
Before the shift.
Before I started editing myself to fit into a mold he never asked for but always seemed to prefer.
I missed who I was before him.
Not just the girl who laughed freely or asked questions without fear,
but the girl who believed she didn't have to earn love by being easy to deal with.
I started dreading the in-between moments.
The ones where we weren't laughing or touching or pretending.
Because in those moments, I'd catch him drifting
eyes somewhere else, heart nowhere near me.
And I'd wonder if he even noticed the version of me I'd become just to stay close.
It's strange how you can be in the same room with someone
share space, air, even affection,
and still feel like a ghost in their life.
I wasn't looking for grand gestures.
I didn't want flowers or fireworks.
I just wanted him to say something simple like
"I'm glad you're here."
But he never did.
And I never asked.
Because asking meant risking the answer.
And I wasn't sure I could handle it.
So I made peace with the little things.
I told myself those things counted for something.
That if I stayed long enough, gave enough, lost enough of myself,
maybe I'd earn permanence.
But the truth sat with me like a weight:
I had stopped being his maybe,
but I'd never become his yes.
And still… I loved him.
Softly. Painfully. Quietly.