PART 2 — The Side She Chose

I used to think I knew what I wanted from love.
Not perfect. Not fantasy.
Just… better.
Someone who didn’t leave me feeling like I had to shrink myself to be chosen. Someone who actually cared about mutual pleasure, not just what they could take. Someone who could laugh with me, talk to me for hours, and still respect themselves when no one was watching.
At the time, I thought that meant I needed to move on from Sandy.
Sandy had always been… complicated.
We’ve known each other for years—long enough that “friend” never felt like the full word for it, but never enough to actually become something.
We talked almost every day at one point. Then life stretched us out into long-distance calls that somehow never faded. Even when we weren’t speaking constantly, we always came back to each other.
There was always that quiet thing neither of us said too loudly.
We like each other.
But we never did anything with it.
Because Sandy was with someone else.
Her name was Manila.
From the way he spoke about her, she wasn’t temporary. She was *future* to him. He talked about routines, shared plans, and the version of life where she stayed.
So I stayed in my lane.
Or I tried to.
Then I met someone else.
A guy I barely knew. The kind of connection that moves too fast because there’s no foundation to slow it down.
I thought I was ready.
I wasn’t.
I gave more than I received. Left feeling used in a way I didn’t even have language for yet. Not broken—just… empty.
And I didn’t call the guy who did it.
I called Sandy.
Not because I loved him more.
But because he felt familiar in a way that didn’t ask anything from me.
That was the first time I realized something had shifted.
I wasn’t trying to replace him anymore.
I just didn’t want to feel invisible again.