Remember when I said I was always searching for the tiniest chance for us?

I meant it.

Year after year,
I kept making excuses to reach out
or at least to leave a small sign that I was still here,
still waiting in the same place.

And then, it was February.
We spoke again, the way we always do.
Finding our way back like we never really left.

But it was me, again,
coming forward with another excuse,
trying to stretch a made up conversation
into another possibility.

Why did I always do that?

All I know is:
at the end of the day,
my heart always chose him.

Not because he was everything
but because, maybe,
he just felt more right.

So I asked the one with the sincere heart to stop giving.

Because there was still a story I hadn’t finished.
Or perhaps, one I still didn’t want to finish.

What I didn’t realize was how the guilt already rooted,
would only grow taller, heavier, and wilder.

I told that heart the truth,
because I didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

But then the guilt doubled.
And somehow, I felt responsible
for keeping the heart okay.

I remember thinking:
my fear of becoming the bad one
was exactly how I became her.

And still,
the guilt kept pressing in.

It took me so long to make sure he was okay.
To finally believe it was okay to stop tending
to someone else’s healing,
when I had already chosen him,
and this time for the third time.

But I was too afraid
to be honest with him from the start.

Afraid to say what weighed on me.
The guilt, the fear, the responsibilities I still carried.
I was afraid I’d break it all again.

So in the end,
I built a relationship on fear.

The fear of hurting.
The fear of being left, again.