...between the boy who had always been there, warm and familiar, and me, a sudden spark in a dim corridor. Her heart, a compass constantly spinning, never quite pointed home. And that was enough to begin something we never quite finished.
It wasn’t love. Not at first. It was a spark—the kind that catches if the wind’s just right. We told ourselves it was innocent. It wasn’t. The truth was, we both wanted to be seen. To be chosen. To be the reason someone turned around.
She drifted between us like someone chasing her own reflection in a broken mirror—wanting him, wanting me, wanting no one at all. And when the wanting dried up, she stood in the stillness, trying to remember who she was before she bent herself to fit into someone else’s hands.
Lisbon was where it all came undone. Not loudly. Quietly. The kind of unravelling that feels like a confession. The truth, the ache, the thing neither of us could name. Her voice was a murmur against the chill air as she sat near the river, and her eyes were tired of choosing. The city was beautiful and breaking at once, just like her.
She spoke of wanting to love, and how often she confused the need to be held with the need to be whole. She had tried to pour herself into others, hoping they might complete her, but their arms had always been too small to hold the storms within her. This was the car before the crash. That summer had the taste of borrowed time. Like the steel glint of a car just before the bend. She loved the way I made her feel alive. But he made her feel safe. And when the world starts closing in, most people choose the harbour over the open sea. I think she saw it then. I think of her sometimes, still. Of her inner child, lonely and folded into corners, asking to be held. Of how I once held more than her hand—I held her hope. Her ache. Her soul.
And maybe that’s what love is. Not the staying. Not the choosing. Just the knowing.
It poured out of her in Lisbon, from a heart that had gone too cold, too quiet.
She didn’t look back. But I did.