Maybe it was jealousy.80Please respect copyright.PENANARZqSW82F1I
Or maybe… it was something harder to name.
That quiet ache in your chest when someone you care about starts smiling a little more —80Please respect copyright.PENANAV8dCLQF5PI
but not because of you.
I kept asking myself:80Please respect copyright.PENANAbzrG4Xvj5e
Was I being possessive? Was I trying to cage something that was never mine to begin with?
But no.80Please respect copyright.PENANADqArk7pGUT
It wasn’t that.80Please respect copyright.PENANA1UyP6hnkoX
It never was.
I wasn’t trying to protect you from someone.80Please respect copyright.PENANAS6Ajrkfz9a
I wasn’t trying to compete.
I was just scared.80Please respect copyright.PENANAe4xQEsA2gM
Terrified, actually.80Please respect copyright.PENANACtDc8Y6Mty
That maybe... Ren would take you away.
But then —80Please respect copyright.PENANAKVO4mGNfDH
one long evening, sitting with my thoughts louder than the world around —80Please respect copyright.PENANAm3Q3AsagHg
I understood something.
People don’t get stolen.80Please respect copyright.PENANApWuhyoDHgq
They drift.
Toward what makes them feel lighter.80Please respect copyright.PENANA48uvXbAkfC
Toward the sun they didn’t know they missed.
And sometimes love —80Please respect copyright.PENANAVHmzYPEsHk
love makes us believe that there’s nothing brighter than what we have right now.80Please respect copyright.PENANA1ArVJ2YDwD
That this, this, is the brightest moment the world can ever offer.
But that’s a lie love tells.80Please respect copyright.PENANATNAJ3IRnuD
Because love is blind,80Please respect copyright.PENANAjVtrF3XeZj
and people are not.
And so I questioned it all.80Please respect copyright.PENANAtTC5UPpH6n
Not love.80Please respect copyright.PENANA7NpySqcPqW
But the things we confuse for love.
The need to be someone’s only.80Please respect copyright.PENANAareUlta2Sd
The quiet wish that they’ll never find better than you.80Please respect copyright.PENANA0U71aG0zQh
The fear that if they do — they’ll forget you ever existed.
Is that love?80Please respect copyright.PENANA5GOrEJF5uW
Or is that greed in disguise?
Maybe the worst kind of greed —80Please respect copyright.PENANA7Cg3l6HHUU
the one that wants to own a heart that was only meant to be held gently,80Please respect copyright.PENANA1lOoRHvmGe
not gripped tight.
You see,80Please respect copyright.PENANA3eWJszjkwM
I wasn’t jealous.80Please respect copyright.PENANAPrFZ2BlHrw
Not really.
I was just scared of losing us.80Please respect copyright.PENANAZWVkTBTXx6
The us we created in tiny moments —80Please respect copyright.PENANAQa12CE9jVK
walking beside buses, laughing at nonsense,80Please respect copyright.PENANAEzo4kahbK8
holding on to silences like they were the most honest things we ever said.
I was scared of losing that version of you I named Forevermore.80Please respect copyright.PENANAsXezI44Hz4
And the version of me that only ever existed around you.
But then —80Please respect copyright.PENANA63YO7jJVI5
I also realized something else.
It’s not someone else that breaks two people apart.80Please respect copyright.PENANAJyMWmJBLff
It’s not Ren. Or time. Or coincidence.
It’s us.80Please respect copyright.PENANAKNVJKiStZe
Me. And you.80Please respect copyright.PENANAIRkUAleLnh
Choosing, or failing, to hold on.80Please respect copyright.PENANAmifM9e7iu9
Letting go, not because someone better came along…80Please respect copyright.PENANA35zLF4IVDi
but because we forgot how to see each other like we used to.
And that’s what broke my heart the most.
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