you adored me before

how it feels meeting someone again after months apart

souls intertwine and merge in the most unexpected ways — after small talk on a summer morning beneath a soft sun, after stepping off a train, and life shifts completely. this stranger becomes a vast part of yourself, and you forget you once lived without them.

the brain forgets how to rest without the rush of dopamine; their scent, the texture of their hair between your fingers. you feel whole in a way you never were before.

and then, one day, they leave.

as they always do.

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source

seeing you after such a long time, during which i had grown used to your absence, was bittersweet. i thought i remembered your voice, but hearing it again made me realize how much i had begun to forget: the crack between your sentences, how loud you get when you are excited, the way you pronounce certain words. your hair is different now, yet you look quite the same. even in the dim light, your eyes are still how i remember — except they no longer look at me with tenderness. or at least, that’s what i believed.

as you spoke, time folded back on itself. i felt myself stalling while you moved forward, dating more people than the fingers on one hand. proof, merciless, of how easy i am to forget. and yet, there you were, proving it to me again.

i knew you would kiss me. i must admit, i missed it so much. but when it came, it did not feel right. it felt almost as if you weren’t kissing me for me. you didn’t miss me. you were just lonely.

i couldn’t help but wonder: was i just your way of feeling less alone last night?

the car windows started to fog as we tried to catch our breath. outside, there were no voices, no footsteps, no signs of life beyond the glow of city lights. and yet, inside, everything was noise: my heartbeat raced, and your hands moved like they remembered me, but they didn’t.

i thought i would recognize you in every gesture, but some of them belonged to a stranger.

still, i remembered you at the train station, whispering, “i adore you.” what happened between then and now? what changed? maybe nothing. maybe everything.

you stopped adoring me. but not enough to keep from kissing me again.

i think now i was just your temporary fix. someone who almost makes you feel whole when no one else does. and i let you. because some part of me still wanted to believe that what we had wasn’t completely gone.

your touch no longer carried the tenderness it once did — and yet it still felt amazing. in the worst way. a dangerous kind of great, the kind that tricks you into mistaking memory for comfort.

and as we lay there in the dark, i realized only one of us truly longed for what we used to be. we hadn’t changed much. only enough for me to finally understand why it was never a good idea to be there with you, in that car, beneath the fading night.

driving through the empty streets, i found myself wishing the drive would never end. that the roads would stretch on forever, just to delay the moment i had to let go again.

but when you stepped out and closed the door, the silence beside me was unbearable. the empty seat made it real.

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maybe that’s how it is supposed to go when meeting someone again after months apart: one of us always feels more than the other. one of us mistakes memory for presence, need for affection. and it’s only when you’re side by side again, in the quiet of the night, that you realize how much distance can live inside closeness.

because sometimes, the people who once made you whole return only to remind you of the pieces you had to gather when they left.

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