I tell myself I am imagining it.
That whatever is shifting is temporary.
Situational.
The kind of closeness that forms out of proximity, not intention.
I've always trusted logic more than longing.
So I catalogue the feeling instead of naming it.
I observe it the way I observe everything else
from a careful distance, as if awareness alone might neutralise its power.
But distance has never stopped feeling.
It has only taught me how to live beside it.
I notice how my body responds before my mind does.
How I orient toward them without thinking.
How my attention sharpens when their presence enters the room, as if something in me has been waiting without knowing what for.
This irritates me.
I am disciplined about where I place my energy.
Careful about what I allow to take root.
I have learned slowly, painfully that not everyone who sees you knows how to hold you.
So I begin to pull back.
Not dramatically.
Nothing anyone else would notice.
I speak a little less.
I offer fewer fragments of myself.
I return to listening instead of sharing.
It feels safer there.
They don't push.
That, somehow, makes it worse.
Most people react to distance by closing the gap by demanding reassurance, clarity, definition.
They don't.
They simply adjust.
They remain present without insistence.
Attentive without expectation.
As if they understand that closeness cannot be demanded only invited.
This unsettles me more than pursuit ever could. Because it leaves me without something to resist.
There is a moment small, almost forgettable
where we sit near each other without speaking.
Nothing meaningful is exchanged.
No confession.
No revelation.
Just shared quiet.
I feel it then the urge to say something honest.
Something unnecessary.
The kind of truth that doesn't ask to be fixed.
It rises quickly, instinctively and I push it back down.
I have spent years perfecting restraint.
Learning how to edit myself in real time.
How to give people the version of me that is complete enough to be liked but not open enough to be altered.
Letting someone see more would mean relinquishing control.
I don't know how to do that without losing something.
Still, I catch them watching me not openly, not intrusively just enough to register.
Not as if they are studying me, but as if they are listening for something I haven't said yet.
I look away.
There is a tension in being known slowly.
A pressure that builds not through intensity,
but through consistency.
They remain.
Day after day.
Moment after moment.
No demand.
No rush.
Just the quiet suggestion that they are not going anywhere.
This should comfort me.
Instead, it exposes me.
Because if they stay without being asked
if they see without being invited
then eventually I will have to decide
whether I am willing to be fully present in return.
And presence has always been riskier than absence.
I think about all the times I have chosen safety over sincerity.
All the moments I have left pieces of myself unshared, because they felt too delicate for the world as it is.
I tell myself I am protecting my softness.
But late at night, when everything is quiet enough to be honest, I wonder if I am also protecting myself from being changed.
Because love real love
does not arrive gently and leave you untouched.
It rearranges.
And I am not sure I am ready to be rearranged.
So I maintain the distance I know how to keep.
Measured.
Controlled.
But even as I do,
I am aware of the truth settling beneath my caution:
Somewhere between noticing and retreating,
between silence and honesty, I have already let them closer than anyone else in a long time.
And I don't know how to undo that without leaving something essential behind.