It’s chipping away at my soul, waiting for you to reach out.
And then I think maybe I was too harsh. Maybe I should have responded too. But I’m tired of feeling like this, like I have to beg for something that should be given willingly. It’s embarrassing. Humiliating.
Something you once gave so freely is now scarce. How could that be?
I’m not naive enough to ignore what I know. When someone is genuinely interested in you, you don’t spend your days questioning it. Yet I find myself questioning it every other day.
And with all this time that passes, I replay everything. Every conversation. Every interaction.
I notice the shifts.
The inconsistencies.
The details that never quite lined up.
The subtle attempts at misdirection that I brushed aside because I wanted to believe you.
And I can’t help but wonder if you simply wanted something. If, in order to get it, the story had to be told in a way I would find convincing. In a way that felt safe. In a way that felt good for me.
The lies started with your name.
Such a small thing, really. A detail most people would dismiss. But isn’t that how trust is built? Detail by detail. Truth by truth.
And if the foundation was never real, what was I standing on all along?
Maybe that’s what hurts the most.
Not that you lied.
Not even what you lied about.
It’s the realization that while I was trying to understand you, you were carefully managing what I was allowed to know.
And now I’m left sorting through memories, trying to figure out which parts were real and which parts were simply written for an audience of one.
She Was Sea 