There's something weird that happens to me when I look at you now.
I don't know if it's sadness, jealousy, nostalgia or a rotten mixture of everything together... but it hurts.
Not because I see you bad.
It hurts because I see you well.
And it's such a contradictory feeling that it leaves me breathless, as if every part of me had a different opinion from what I feel.
There is a side of me - one that I don't like to show - that feels proud.
I swear I do.
That side looks at how you walk lighter, how you no longer lower your head to talk to me, how you laugh at things that have nothing to do with me...
And feel relief.
As if you had finally gone out to breathe after so much drowning.
But there is another side...
A darker one,
More selfish,
Even more human... who breaks every time he sees you smile without me.
Because before your smile included me, even if I didn't value it.
Before your energy moved around me, and even if I didn't admit it, it supported me.
Not anymore.
Now you are a planet that has returned to its own axis, and I am just an off satellite floating around without anyone noticing.
And that... that hurts me more than it should.
I see you talking to others with that new calm.
I see you walking around the house without that fear, without that tension, without that "what is he going to say."
I see you confident, firm, marked by something that made you stronger than I imagined.
And I wonder when I stopped being part of your light to become the shadow you had to go through.
Because that's what I feel:
That you grew up from the pain I caused you.
That you rebuilt yourself from my ruins. That you became new right at the point where I became old.
And the worst thing is that I can't say anything.
I have no right.
I'm not allowed to claim what I broke.
Then I keep quiet.
Looking at you.
Barely breathing.
I see how you fix your hair in front of the mirror without seeking my approval.
How do you tell a joke without looking at me to see my reaction.
How do you serve yourself a glass of water without asking me if I want one too.
I see you talking to someone else who makes you laugh like I never could.
I see you pass by me without looking at me anymore, but the smell of your perfume invades my nose and makes me want to hold your hand; that you see me and hug you... but I'm a coward who hides.
It's so simple.
So everyday.
So insignificant.
But it pierces me.
Because every gesture of yours that no longer takes me into account is a reminder that I deleted myself from the place you had given me.
And yes...
I know it's good that you're fine.
I know it's the healthy thing.
I know it's fair.
But I'm not going to lie to you:
There are days when seeing you like this hits me harder than the silence of that night.
Because I could deny that silence.
I could make him up.
I could justify it.
But this... not this.
This is the living consequence.
It's your freedom walking around the house as if the world had reopened.
It's your skin without fear.
It's your voice without trembling.
It's your energy without asking my permission to exist.
And me, from here, looking at everything without being able to touch it, without being able to have an opinion, without being able to claim anything...
I can only repeat in my head a phrase that I will never say out loud:
I didn't know it was going to hurt so much to see you heal