Entry Eighteen: "The Reckoning Begins"

I thought running would make it smaller.

I'm lying in bed, phone in hand, his contact open. It's late, past midnight. The kind of hour when truth feels closer, when the defenses I've built during the day start to crumble.

I've typed and deleted three different messages.

Hey, I've been thinking about you.

Delete.

How are you?

Delete.

I miss you.

Delete.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard. My chest feels tight. Not with anxiety, exactly. With something bigger. Something I've been pushing down for weeks, maybe months.

The truth is this:

I've been running from him.

Not physically. Not even consciously. But in every swipe, every match, every date, I've been trying to find someone who could make me forget. Someone who could replace the pull. Someone who could offer me what he did, depth, presence, the feeling of being truly seen, without the complication of his life not leading to me.

But it hasn't worked.

Because the pull doesn't care about logic. It doesn't care that his life is elsewhere, that we haven't spoken in months, that reaching out might open something I can't close again.

The pull just... is.

I put the phone down. Stare at the ceiling.

What am I so afraid of?

The question sits in my chest, heavy and real.

I'm afraid he won't respond. I'm afraid he will respond. I'm afraid of wanting something I can't have. I'm afraid of admitting how much I still feel. I'm afraid of being vulnerable and having it not matter. I'm afraid of being vulnerable and having it matter too much.

I roll over. Pull the blanket up. Close my eyes.

But the pull is still there. Quiet. Persistent. Undeniable.

And I know, even as I try to sleep, even as I tell myself not yet, not ready, not brave enough...

I know this isn't going away.

I know I'm going to have to face it eventually.

I know running only works for so long.

—Still here, still running, still knowing