Seeing him with her affected me way worse than I thought it would.
And I hate even admitting that because I really thought I had a better grip on this situation emotionally. I knew what this was between us. I knew we weren’t together. I knew there were other women. None of that was hidden from me. So in my head, I thought I prepared myself enough to handle something like this if it ever happened.
But actually seeing it is different.
Actually seeing him beside somebody else after everything between us felt like reality finally hitting me all at once. And ever since then, my head has just been nonstop. Thinking about everything. Replaying everything. Overanalyzing everything.
Because no matter how much I try to reduce this connection down to “it was just sex,” it never fully felt like just sex to me.
Not all the time.
There was too much emotional familiarity there.
Too much softness in certain moments.
Too much reassurance for there to be absolutely nothing underneath it.
That’s what keeps getting to me.
Because why reassure me at all if I was supposed to feel nothing? Why go out of your way to tell me the girls around you weren’t serious? Why reassure me more than once that you weren’t in a relationship? Why keep circling back to me every time logic told us to stop this?
That’s what makes this hurt in such a confusing way.
Because logically, I know exactly what this was.
But emotionally, it became more than that to me over time.
And our dynamic really was one of a kind.
A year and a half of constantly trying to leave each other alone and somehow always finding our way back. I know he stayed because I allowed him to. I’m not delusional about that. I opened the door for him just as much as he opened the door back for me. Every time I tried to end it, somehow I’d come back. Every time he pulled away, somehow he’d come back too.
That’s what keeps messing with my head now.
Because if something is truly that toxic to somebody, wouldn’t they leave it alone completely? Wouldn’t they stop returning to it? We both knew this wasn’t healthy. We both said it over and over again. We both knew this dynamic drained us mentally. Yet neither one of us fully let go for a year and a half.
That’s not normal casual behavior to me.
That’s the kind of shit that keeps me up overthinking now because I start wondering what this actually was to him emotionally. Was it deeper than he allowed himself to admit? Or was I the only one attaching meaning to all of it? Was I the only one carrying this connection heavier than it was supposed to be carried?
Because you don’t stay in something that long accidentally.
You don’t keep returning to the same person accidentally.
You don’t continuously choose somebody over and over again for a year and a half if there’s absolutely nothing there.
At least that’s what my mind keeps trying to convince itself of lately.
And maybe that’s why seeing him with her got under my skin the way it did. Because suddenly I’m forced to sit with the reality that maybe everything I thought felt significant between us was only significant to me in the way I experienced it.
That thought hurts more than seeing him with somebody else honestly.
Because I can handle us not being together. I always knew we weren’t together. But feeling like something consumed me emotionally more than it consumed him? That’s the part that’s harder to swallow.
And maybe I’ll never fully know the truth of what I meant to him.
Maybe he doesn’t even fully know himself.
I just know seeing him with her made everything feel a lot less numb.
Tag: feeling
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I feel so much for him that sometimes it feels safer to pretend I don’t. The emotions come in waves, strong and sudden, and instead of leaning into them, I find myself stepping back, creating distance, putting walls where doors should be. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I care so deeply it scares me. When the feelings start to rise, when my heart starts to soften, when I feel that quiet pull toward him, something inside me panics. I retreat. I go quiet. I protect myself from something that isn’t hurting me, but feels like it could if I lose control.
I push him away not because he’s unwanted, but because he matters too much. Because the idea of letting someone see how much I feel feels vulnerable in a way I’m not used to anymore. I’ve learned how to survive disappointment, how to guard my heart, how to keep my emotions contained. But with him, containment feels impossible. The feelings slip through the cracks. They show up in the way I think about him when he’s not around, in the way my chest tightens when he gets close, in the way I want to reach for him and run from him at the exact same time.
That’s the part that confuses me the most. Because I’m pretty sure what I’m feeling is love, or something very close to it. It’s not loud or dramatic. It’s not even reckless or chaotic. It’s steady, heavy, and undeniable. But I second guess it because I can’t say the words out loud. Because admitting it would make it real, and real things come with risk… Real things can hurt… Real things require trust, and trust means surrendering the illusion of control.
So instead, I hold it inside. I feel everything, but show only pieces. I care deeply, but act distant. I love quietly, but protect myself loudly. And sometimes I wonder if the very thing I’m running from is the thing my heart has been searching for all along.
trailofchapters 