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I didn’t ask what it meant because you hadn’t offered me the right to ask.

I am proud of that now.

At the time, I wanted to turn around, climb inside your chest, and hold the words hostage until you admitted they meant everything.

You were right not to trust me with them then. I would have taken too much from one unguarded moment because I was still terrified that anything I didn’t seize could be ripped away from me.

I am no longer that woman.

That doesn’t mean I forgot how you sounded when love slipped through your control.

My chest tightens hard enough to hurt.

I move farther into the apartment and sit on the arm of the couch because walking while reading has become impossible.

The night in front of the mirror remains first.

What happened between us didn’t heal anything. It didn’t restore your trust, forgive the study, or promise that we would find our way back to one another.

I understand that now.

You entered that room needing me, and I failed to see you until my pain became the only thing either of us could hear. You gave me what I needed after I had refused to give you the comfort you asked from me.

I will always be ashamed that it took losing you again before I understood what that cost.

I also remember every second.

I remember you behind me, fully dressed while I stood naked in front of you. I remember your hands on every place I had spent years hating. I remember wanting to hide and the way you refused to let shame take me somewhere you couldn’t follow.

You told me I was safe.

You told me it was only you.

You made me watch myself through your eyes until, for one moment, I believed you.

I spent my entire life looking into mirrors and searching for evidence against myself. That night, you made your body the evidence. Your hands, your voice, and the way you looked at me like wanting me caused you physical pain forced me to remain visible.

You weren’t gentle because you pitied me.

You held me there because disappearing would have been easier, and you knew I had spent too much of my life choosing whatever made me smaller.

I see what you gave me that night.

I also see what I failed to give you.

Both truths exist inside the memory now.

I need you to know I still find the woman you showed me sometimes.

There are mornings when the old voice reaches me before I am fully awake, and days when loving this body requires more work than I want to give. I won’t lie to make recovery sound prettier than it is.

Then I remember your face in that mirror. I remember looking at myself and seeing the woman you couldn’t stop touching.

Sometimes I can find her without you now.

Sometimes I look at her and think about everything I would let you do if you were here.

I drag one hand over my mouth.