What hurts isn't that he left. It's what I let myself hope for.
It’s been months.
I don’t want him back. I wouldn’t even feel safe with him now. But sometimes, he still shows up in my thoughts unexpected, uninvited, and unwelcome. I catch myself wondering: Why does it still hurt?
The truth is, I don't miss him. I miss the version of him I wanted to believe in.
The one I imagined during our late night calls, the one who listened to my half-finished thoughts.
The version my nervous system attached to, even when the rest of me knew better.
Because even if you don’t want someone in your life anymore, your body remembers what it hoped for.
And that’s what hurts: the hope. The possibility.
The almost.
When you’ve craved connection for so long, even a breadcrumb can feel like a meal. Especially when it’s served with just enough warmth to make you question your own hunger.
That’s what intermittent affection does, it confuses you. Hooks you. Makes you think maybe next time it’ll be different.
But the part of me that still thinks about him?
She’s not hoping for him.
She’s hoping for closure.
For validation.
For someone to say, you weren’t imagining it. You weren’t too much. You just asked the wrong person to see you.
And there’s grief in that. Quiet, private grief for something that never quite became what it could have been.
There’s no funeral for almost.
But I’m learning to let it hurt without reopening the door.
To let the ache pass through without translating it into action.
To love the part of me that believed, because it means I was brave enough to try.
That is what it looks like to heal in public, a little at a time:
To say yes, it hurt.
Yes, I hoped.
And no, I don’t need him to make it make sense.
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