To the one who left me wondering

I read your letter. Or maybe I just imagined you ever writing something like it. Either way, this is what I would say back, if this was us.

You say you pushed me away because you weren't ready. You didn’t pull back with words. You just disappeared slowly, until silence was all I could feel. No big fight, no goodbye, just the steady dimming of someone who once made me feel chosen.

You talk about patience. I was patient too. I stayed when the replies turned short. I stayed when you stopped reaching out but still watched my stories like you were standing outside a door you refused to knock on. I waited for clarity that never came. Only the quiet sting of realizing I was loving someone who was already halfway out.

You say you chose distance because you were afraid of how real it felt. But do you know what it’s like to be on the other side of that? To feel someone pull away while you’re still holding on with both hands? To wonder if you were ever enough, or if you were just a temporary warmth until they found something safer?

Maybe you think you spared me by leaving without explanation. But silence has a way of carving questions into the heart. Questions we answer alone at 2AM, questions we never get closure for.

You say you hope they know they were the brightest part of your life. I wish I could say the same about you, but the truth is, you were a mix of softness and confusion, sweetness and uncertainty.

You were almost. You were nearly. You were not quite.

I don’t know if you ever think of me the way I think of you. I don’t know if your heart ever aches the way mine did when things turned quiet.

But I hope, in some universe, you understand this much. I would have stayed. I would have chosen you. All I needed was for you to meet me halfway, and maybe you never could.

So here we are, two stories that never found an ending. You regret what you ran from, I grieve what I held onto.

And if one day, paths ever cross again, not as a second chance, not as a plea, but simply as two people who finally learned how to love without fear. Maybe then, we’ll understand what “almost” was trying to teach us.