I tried to fall in love with him, I really did.

I tried to fall in love with him, I really did. I told myself that maybe love wasn’t supposed to feel like lightning—that maybe all the stories and songs had lied to me. Maybe love could be gentle, patient, something that arrived slowly and quietly, like sunlight filtering through blinds. So I gave it time. I gave him time. I memorized the way he laughed, the small creases that formed at the corners of his mouth when he smiled, the way his hands trembled slightly when he was nervous. I thought if I filled my life with enough of his details, eventually they’d start to feel like home. But no matter how many days I spent tracing constellations in his freckles or holding his callused hands like they held answers, something inside me stayed still. My friends told me I was lucky—he was good, kind, patient, and he was fulfilling enough. And I knew they were right. He deserved everything. He deserved the kind of love from me that fills a room and makes people believe in happy endings. But I couldn’t give it to him, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t find it in the deep crevices of my nervous system or the pieces of my heart.

The way it usually goes is that: it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t mine. That was not the case. It was my fault, he gave me everything he had, and I gave him what I give to my close friends. See, sometimes the heart just refuses to follow the logic of what should be. Sometimes it simply doesn’t choose the person who checks every box. I wanted to love him because he made sense—because he would never, ever, hurt me, because he saw the best in me, because it felt like the right thing. But every time he hugged me, or held my hand, or looked deep into my soul I felt this strange ache, like I was pretending to be someone else—someone who looked back and meant my attraction to him. I kept hoping one day I’d wake up and feel it. That I’d look at him and finally understand what everyone else meant when they talked about being in love. But that day never came. And pretending any longer would’ve been cruel—to him, to myself, to the version of us that could never really exist. So I let him go, even though a part of me still wonders what might’ve happened if my heart had just cooperated.