People don’t hold on to girls like me.
They forget us.
They let us go.
And if they do come back, it’s only long enough to remind us why we never should’ve believed in the first place.
I tried to rationalize it. Tried to believe he was busy, or overwhelmed, or sorting things out in that quiet, broody way of his. But the longer I went without hearing from him, the easier it became to rewrite the weekend into something shameful.
Sure, he’d taken care of me. Fed me. Bathed me. Held my hair back when I puked and wrapped me in his arms like I was something fragile. He’d drawn a bath, blow-dried my hair, rubbed my back when my migraine hit like a freight train, and shut out the world with blackout curtains and whispered questions in the dark.
And when my alarm went off that Monday morning, tearing me from the warm cocoon of him? Climbing out of his bed felt like ripping off my own skin. Getting dressed in my clothes from the bar was its own special kind of torture. Walking out the door nearly broke me.
But I did it. I told myself he’d wake up and call. That we’d talk. That everything he said, everything he promised, wouldn’t turn to ash the second I was gone.
Four days.
That’s all it took for the self-sabotage to kick in—loud and cruel, whispering things I’ve spent my whole life trying not to believe.
You’re too much.
You’re not enough.
You made it up.
He used you.
He regrets it.
He. Regrets. You.
By the time my phone rang this afternoon, in between house visits, and his name lit up my screen, I was too far gone. And when my emotions get the best of me, I get angry. I get snappy and sassy and pissed off.
When I declined the first call, it wasn’t a mistake. And when he called again, and again, until I finally answered—I was short and painfully cold, my voice held together by threads that were already unraveling.
But then he brokenly rasped the only three words that could’ve soothed the storm in my chest.
“I need you.”
Just like that, every wall I’d spent four days rebuilding crumbled like dust. His voice was ragged, worn, full of defeat—and I didn’t even hesitate.
How could I?
Because in the space that had grown between us, I’d started to forget thetruth.
I’d started to forget the man I walked away from wasn’t just the one who made me feel good. He was the man who held me like he was afraid to let go. The man who cried in a nursery over the story of his dad. The man who drank himself sick trying to outrun grief so deep it swallowed him whole. The man who held me while I broke, and promised he’d carry my pieces.
A promise I made right back.
I forgot.
But the second I heard his voice again, it all came rushing back. Every soft word, every shattered piece he let me hold.
I told him I’d be there soon, and I meant it.
Even as guilt clawed up my throat for being such a goddamn coward. For punishing him for disappearing, when maybe he was just barely holding it together.
Now, the sun is down. The breeze is cold. The scent of blooming flowers is thick in the air as I stand on his wraparound porch, heart pounding behind my ribs like a drum.
