He never insulted me.
Never raised his voice.
His words came dressed in sarcasm and jokes.
Light enough to dismiss,
sharp enough to pierce.
Once, after paying for one of my hospital bills,
He laughed and said,
"If I even had a girlfriend, the money I've spent on you, I would have bought her iPhone by now."
He said it casually, like it was nothing.
Like I wasn't sitting right there.
Like I wasn't the you in that sentence.
He didn't need to say I wasn't his girlfriend.
That line said it for him,
loudly, clearly, and with a smirk.
Sometimes I'd mention things I was struggling with, like money or fear or needing comfort, and he'd respond with,
"You're always doing the most."
No softness.
No room to unpack how I felt.
Just these little verbal blocks that taught me to shut up and smile.
And I did.
I smiled.
I laughed along with him.
Even when my heart was crumbling.
Because when someone gives you small kindnesses,
pays your bills, shows up when you're sick, checks in once in a while,
You start to believe that's all you deserve.
You start to convince yourself that asking for more is ungrateful.
I remember one day I asked,
"Do you even like having me around?"
And he looked at me like I was ridiculous.
"Why would you ask that?" he said.
And suddenly, I became the problem.
My feelings became the issue.
So I tucked them back in and pretended everything was fine.
Everyone around me thought he cared about me.
"He paid for your health stuff."
"He checks up on you sometimes."
"He's not wicked now."
And they were right, he wasn't wicked.
He was just distant.
Detached.
Unavailable in all the ways that mattered to me.
And the hardest part was that he never did enough to justify leaving
But never did enough to make me stay whole either.
He kept me in between.
Not girlfriend. Not a stranger.
Just someone who was always there.
And I stayed.
Not because I didn't know better.
But because I was hoping that maybe,
One day,
He'd stop reminding me, even through jokes
that I didn't belong to him.
I started shrinking around him.
Careful with my words. Careful with my wants.
Afraid that expressing too much would make me "too much."
So I watered myself down,
until I couldn't recognize my reflection in his silence.
He didn't have to break me to break my heart.
He just had to stay neutral.
Not cruel. Not kind.
Just there, enough to keep me hoping,
but never enough to make me feel safe.
It's a slow kind of undoing,
When someone gives you crumbs and you turn them into cake.
When the bare minimum starts to feel like love,
and love starts to feel like a waiting room with no door.
I used to think maybe I was overthinking it.
Maybe I was just sensitive.
Maybe if I stayed a little longer, gave a little more,
he'd see me differently.
But over time, I realized something brutal:
It wasn't that he didn't see me.
It's that he saw me clearly, and still chose distance.
Still chose not to reach for me.
Still chose to let me linger on the edge of his life,
never quite inside, never fully gone.
And that kind of half-love?
It leaves a whole ache.