I couldn’t stand the way you looked at me—as if I were something delicate, something you didn’t want to break. It made my skin prickle and my chest feel tight, like you could see past everything I used to hide behind. I would turn away, pretend I didn’t notice. But I noticed. Every time. I felt your eyes on me like fire, and I hated how much I liked it.
Because every time you looked at me, I melted. I would feel myself slipping, unraveling—like wax surrendering to heat. Like I was no longer my own. It terrified me. I had spent so long learning how to be untouchable, and there you were, undoing me with a glance.
I couldn’t stand the way you spoke to me either. God, your voice—soft, unrushed, unguarded. You spoke like the world hadn’t ruined you, like kindness still lived in your chest without shame. And when you said my name… it wasn’t just a word. It felt like a song, like prayer, like you believed it deserved to be spoken with gentleness.
That’s what ruined me, really. The way you made me feel like I was worthy of tenderness.
No one had done that before. They admired my strength, sure. They respected my distance, feared my silence, praised my resilience. But you… you were the first to see past it. You didn’t flinch from the sharp edges. You didn’t try to dull them. You just… stood there. Quiet and constant. Like you weren’t afraid to be hurt. Like you’d stay even if I pushed you.
I couldn’t stand the way you acknowledged my presence, like it was something sacred. You noticed me in ways that made me ache. The way my eyes moved when I was tired. The pauses in my sentences when I was trying not to say too much. The way my hands fidgeted when I was lying. You noticed it all, and you never called attention to it—but you remembered. You adjusted. You cared.
And I couldn’t stand that. I wasn’t used to being seen. Not like that. Not in the quiet, consistent way you did it. I’d spent years convincing myself I didn’t need that kind of attention, that kind of softness.
But then you came along and offered it freely—no games, no conditions, no pretense.
You ruined me.
Because now, when I sit alone at night, I think of the way your voice sounds when you’re half-laughing. I think of your eyes, how they never looked through me or around me—but into me, like I was something you wanted to keep. I think of your hands, how they never reached without asking, how they lingered like they were afraid to let go.
And suddenly, all the walls I built don’t feel like protection anymore. They feel like prisons.
I couldn’t stand you. But not because you were cruel.
Because you were kind.
Because you were warm.
Because you were everything I told myself I didn’t need—
and everything I was silently begging for.
And now I don’t know how to go back to not being loved like that.
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