I HATE THAT I LOVE YOU

I HATE THAT I LOVE YOU 2

Just thoughtful little moments that reminded me someone, somewhere, was thinking of me in the middle of ordinary life. It was subtle. It was steady. And it was everything I didn’t know my heart had been waiting for. I didn’t know when I started smiling at my phone.

At first, it was just subtle an unconscious curve of my lips at the sight of his name lighting up my screen. A chuckle at something he said. A pause before replying, not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I cared too much about how I said it. And yet, despite the warmth creeping in, I kept my guard up. Fiercely. Like a soldier standing watch over a heart that had been let down one too many times. I reminded myself of every reason why Dayo wasn’t supposed to be the one. He was unpredictable. Unsettling, too spontaneous, too sure of himself. The exact kind of man I had promised to avoid, but it didn’t stop the butterflies.

I hated how my heart leapt every single time his name appeared on my screen. I hated how I started checking my reflection twice, fixing my hair, adjusting my clothes, just in case I bumped into him. I hated how his voice echoed in my mind long after the conversation ended. I hated the way he made me feel because I wasn’t ready to admit how deeply I was feeling. Most of all, I hated how I loved him. Quietly. Unexpectedly. Like a slow burning fire I never meant to light, but couldn’t put out. But the truth is, Dan saw me in ways I didn’t even see myself. He looked past the layers I kept perfectly in place the calm exterior, the careful words, the rehearsed strength. He noticed the subtle shifts in my voice when I was tired, the silence I used to hide anxiety, the way I’d retreat into my own mind when things felt too much. And he never called me out to embarrass me; he saw me and stayed. He didn’t try to fix me, which was rare.

Most people want to offer solutions. Dan simply offered his presence, his patience. He let me process out loud or quietly, and he gave me the space to be messy without making me feel like I had to apologize for it. Yet somehow, that space never felt like distance. He was near enough to feel like home, but far enough to let me breathe. And in that gentle rhythm of presence, I started to unfold. Slowly. Willingly. One night, we found ourselves walking under a wide, open sky speckled with stars. The kind of night that makes the world feel both infinite and intimate at once. I remember the quiet between us wasn’t awkward it was full of meaning. And then, out of nowhere, he leaned in slightly and whispered "You can hate it all you want, but I think your heart already made its choice.” I looked at him, half ready to argue, half terrified that he was right. But deep down, I knew my heart had made a choice. Long before my mind caught up. And in that moment, wrapped in starlight and silence, I stopped fighting it. Because loving him didn’t feel like weakness anymore. It felt like surrendering to something real.

Love isn’t always quiet and predictable. It doesn’t always arrive neatly wrapped in logic or perfect timing. Sometimes, it crashes into your life like a storm loud, wild, and utterly inconvenient. It challenges your boundaries, pushes against your comfort zones, and forces you to feel things you swore you were done feeling. Loving Dan wasn’t part of the plan, It wasn’t cautious or calculated it was messy. Full of contradictions. One minute I was fighting it, the next I was falling deeper. There were days I questioned everything and days I felt more myself than I ever had. And that’s the thing about real love it reveals you to yourself. He didn’t come into my life gently. He came with energy, with truth, with a mirror. And though I tried to resist, love like that has a way of undoing you in the best possible way. So yes, I still say, “I hate that I love him.” Because it wasn’t supposed to happen, because it caught me off guard, because it made me vulnerable but maybe just maybe what I really mean is I love that I love him, because through him, I discovered a version of myself I didn’t know I was waiting to become and honestly I wouldn’t change a thing.