Bonus Episode 13 – What I Never Said
308 Words
It was midnight again.
The apartment was quiet, and for the first time in weeks, it didn’t feel like it hated her.
Nadim had fallen asleep on the couch.
His breathing was steady. Softer now.
There was no space between them tonight — but she still felt the weight of everything they hadn’t said.
She sat at the edge of the bed and opened her journal.
A habit she’d dropped when things got messy.
Tonight, she needed the truth.
> I thought loving him would be enough.
But love gets quiet when fear gets loud.
I kept waiting for him to notice I was slipping, but I never screamed. I never reached out. I just let myself go numb.
She paused.
> Then someone came along and noticed the silence. And I mistook attention for affection. I mistook validation for love.
I betrayed the safest place I’d ever known because I didn’t know how to ask for help.
She looked up at Nadim from across the room.
The man who once carried her heartbreak like it was his own.
She remembered the little things.
The way he’d leave tea by the door when she got home late.
The way he’d always remember her mother’s medication refill dates.
The way he never let her go to sleep sad — until she stopped telling him when she was.
> I want him back. Not the perfect version. Just the real one.
I want to learn how to love him out loud again.
And I want to be someone worth being loved back.
She set the pen down and wiped her eyes.
Maybe he’d never read it.
Maybe he’d never fully forgive her.
But maybe, just maybe —
they were building something new now.
Something slower.
Something that remembered how broken things had once been…
but chose to stay anyway.
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- Writer
