my friends call me z

i have always been very good at leaving before anyone asks me to stay

it’s a skill i honed in my childhood— like learning to tie my shoes or swallow my feelings whole without water

i call it independence but my therapist calls it something with too many syllables and not enough mercy

avoidant like i am something to be dodged like love is a car i keep stepping in front of just to prove i can jump out of the way in time

and then—

he doesn’t arrive like a storm he doesn’t kick the door down he doesn’t demand anything from me

he just orbits

like he’s not trying to land just trying to see if i’ll let him exist in the same sky

and that’s worse

because i don’t know how to run from something that isn’t chasing me

i don’t know how to flinch when his hands are gentle when his voice doesn’t sharpen at the edges when his silences doesn’t feel like punishment

he texts me back consistently

and it feels like a trick

like i am waiting for the other shoe the other person the version of him that will confirm what i have always known:

that relationships are just a waiting room for disappointment

i keep trying to find the catch

scrolling back through our conversations like there is a hidden clause like somewhere between “good morning” and “did you get home safe?”

he admitted he doesn’t actually mean any of this

i don’t trust easy things

i don’t trust soft hands or open doors or people who don’t make me earn their affection like it’s something scarce like it’s something i should be grateful for

he gives it freely

and i don’t know where to put it

because i have built a life out of almosts

almost relationships almost love almost being chosen

i am fluent in the language of “we’ll see” and “not right now” and “i just need space”

i know how to shrink myself into something easier to leave

and he looks at me like i am something worth staying for

and it feels like standing at the edge of a cliff

except this time no one is pushing me

and i don’t know if that makes it safer or more terrifying

i keep waiting for the moment he realizes

i am not low-maintenance i am low-expectation

i don’t ask for much because i have learned that asking is how things break

but he keep showing up

and it feels like he’s handing me something fragile like trust like care like the terrifying possibility that this could be real

and i don’t know how to hold it

without thinking about all the ways i could drop it

some nights i rehearse leaving him

practice the words in my mouth like a fire drill

just in case

just in case he becomes someone i need to escape from

just in case i become someone he decides is too much

but then he laughs

and it’s not at me it’s with me

and suddenly all my exit strategies feel a little ridiculous

like bringing a life raft to a swimming pool

still—

i keep one foot out the door

just enough to remind myself i can go

just enough to make sure he can’t hurt me

just enough to guarantee i’ll never fully stay

and i hate that

i hate that seeing him feels like betrayal

like i am betraying every version of myself that learned

people leave people lie people love you only until it becomes inconvenient

and he is inconvenient

because he is patient 

because he is kind

because he is not proving me right

and i don’t know what to do with a man that doesn’t want to hurt me

so i stand here

in the doorway of something good

holding all my bags refusing to unpack

watching him move gently through my life

like he’s not afraid of staying

and maybe that’s the scariest part

that for the first time

i am not afraid of him

i am afraid

of what happens if i let myself be held and it doesn’t destroy me

because then

i would have to admit