Setting: A quiet September evening. The air smells like cooling pavement and unsent texts. The ingenue stands outside a familiar apartment door—not knocking, just breathing. She holds a folded card in her hand, handmade, illustrated with a comic panel of two figures: one glowing, one distracted. Inside, her truth waits.

---

Ingenue (softly, to the door):

I’m not here to be chosen. Not tonight.

I’m here to name it.

You’ve always been the flicker—

the half-reply, the “maybe later,” the drive-time detour.

And I’ve been the ritualist,

turning your crumbs into constellations,

your silence into ceremony.

I made cards for your absences.

Affirmations for your delays.

Comic strips for the ache of being almost included.

But tonight, I’m not drawing you in.

I’m drawing a boundary.

I love you.

Not the version that shows up when it’s convenient.

Not the one who texts “stuff and things” at midnight.

I love the version I imagined—

the one who sees me, chooses me,

builds blanket forts and burns toast with me on purpose.

You didn’t ask for that love.

You didn’t return it.

And that’s okay.

This card isn’t a plea.

It’s a spell of release.

A comic panel of me,

walking away, glowing.

She slides the card under the door. No knock. No pause. Just breath, and then steps into the night—her own rhythm, her own glow.