2:13 AM
I can't sleep.
It's still raining.
This afternoon everything felt gray.
The kind of gray that doesn't storm — just lingers.
I saw her sitting alone on a park bench.
Bag beside her.
Rain soaking into her sweater like she didn't notice.
She was staring at her phone.
I didn't approach at first.
A message popped up.
I miss you.
She typed something back.
need to give it ti—
She stopped.
Didn't send it.
Just stared at the unfinished word.
Time.
She grabbed her bag and stood up.
Started walking without direction.
I followed a few steps behind, not close enough to crowd her.
She looked smaller somehow.
Like the rain had weight.
Later she told me what she was thinking about.
The beginning.
How he felt like her healing arc.
After years with someone narcissistic, someone who made her question herself constantly, she thought she'd finally found stability.
Safety.
She thought he was the calm after the chaos.
She thought:
This is it.
This is my person.
Forever.
She doesn't let people in easily.
She builds walls first.
Detachment is her default setting.
But when she does let someone in, it's deep.
She doesn't do halfway.
And when his anxiety started turning into pressure…
When reassurance became constant…
When she became the emotional anchor instead of the partner…
Something in her shifted.
Attraction doesn't survive suffocation.
She didn't say it like that.
But I heard it.
She crouched down near the edge of the path.
Just… folded in on herself.
Not dramatic.
Just tired.
I walked up then.
She didn't look surprised.
She didn't apologize.
She just broke.
Quietly.
I didn't say much.
There wasn't anything to fix.
I just held her in place so she wouldn't feel like she was falling through the ground.
She cried into my shoulder.
Rain and tears mixing until you couldn't tell which was which.
"I wanted it to be him," she said once.
That was the only full sentence.
I didn't respond with solutions.
I didn't defend him.
I didn't criticize him.
I just stayed.
Because I think she's still carrying the version of him she fell in love with.
And the version of herself she was when she believed it was safe.
I don't know if she'll ever fully trust him again.
I don't know if progress can erase memory.
But tonight I understood something.
She's not afraid of losing him.
She's afraid of losing herself again.
And that kind of fear doesn't disappear just because someone starts going to therapy.
It takes time.
Real time.
The kind she didn't send.