It’s time to try. My throat is dry and my heart is sinking, and my fingertips are so numb I can barely move my hands. But it’s time to speak up, or he will never know.

“Hey, I need to tell you something.” Stop shaking, please stop shaking.

“Yeah? What’s up?” He turns around. It has been a quiet walk back to his place so I don’t blame whatever tension he feels after 20 long minutes of silence.

“I’m sorry I freaked out a few days ago. You brought my favorite roses after I told you what my favorite flower was and it broke me.”

“I’m sorry, I-“

“Hold on, I need to explain myself. Because I was not ready to feel anything you made me feel then, and I’m sorry I broke us up even though we were not together.”

“It’s okay.” He picks up both my hands as my eyes shoot down and closed.

“It’s not. Because I have been struggling to let myself feel anything good between us—it’s not because you’ve treated me poorly though. It’s because you have been so real, and so consistent, and everything I have prayed for. And I could not believe that God gave me you when I was giving up. I wasn’t ready to love you yet, or really… to admit that I love you and feel it. And let you love me back and give you that hope and fuck it up because I’m fighting every urge to be okay with what healing may feel like.

You have been patient with every person I’ve told you about, every horrible aspect of myself, and present everytime I needed you. You made me want to believe that I could do that for someone else too, that I could pour myself into someone who wanted to do just as much—if not—more than that to me. To give me that hope that I may actually deserve love. That being lonely is not an option, and angrily single is not it.

I’m sorry I broke your heart. I broke mine too thinking I was protecting you and knowing I was giving up on a chance to love a genuine, authentic person like you.

That person IS you. And I’m sorry I failed to admit it. I love you, and I don’t want to lose you, even if you weren’t mine this whole time.”

I’m breathing much harder than I thought I would, but somehow, much easier. He cups my face so I can see him through teary eyes.

“Hey, you know I love you too right?” I nod as he brings me into his arms. “And I never stopped.

Did it hurt? Yes, and everyone knew I was walking around a broken man. They all could see we were hurting, or they could have assumed what was going on even if it wasn’t a secret. You needed the time and space to be you, and I was not going to take that away from you. If at the end of the day, you wanted to leave and it wasn’t our time, I wasn’t going to force you to love me back. But I will be yours if you will have me, and I will try if you want me to. I will do anything you want me to because I love you, and that will never change.”

“I love you.” I say into his chest, each breath pushing out hard sobs as I sink further into his embrace. He holds me tighter, gentle and strong as if he was the warm home I’ve been dying to come back to.

“Don’t be sorry. I want you to heal, to feel better, to take your time. I love you because of the peace you bring and you don’t even know it. And I will love you even when you’re not peaceful. And I will stay, because I want to. I’m not going anywhere.”

We stand in his doorway, a tearful, messy duo. Warm, kind, and welcoming. I can’t believe this is what I tried to walk away from. I promise, I will never do that again, as long as he’d have me.

Is this what it feels like? To find peace of my own?

———

Of course, I wish I had spoken up. But I went with my decision to walk him home and not say a thing. Hope is not a strategy, and I know he is in love while I am broken beyond repair.

I am not ready to give him what he wants or thinks he needs—I know someone will and while I may love him from afar, I can pretend that this is how that night went. That we would be living very different lives right now if I had given in to hope.

But I am not going to hold him back from being loved the way he deserves it, so I will stop these feelings once the door shuts, and we hug one last time on his porch, as we are. No turning back now. Goodbye, second chances. And God? Give him someone good, when you can. Please.