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They met in January.
The kind of January that felt like an echo — grey skies, dead air, the world hollowed out and cold to the core. He wasn't looking for anything. He hadn't looked for anything in a long time. Life had become something he moved through, not something he lived in. Mornings were an act of willpower. Nights, a negotiation with the darkness.
Then she appeared.
A random introduction. A shared moment at a friend's gathering. She laughed at a joke he hadn't meant to say out loud, and just like that, a spark lit in a man who had nearly forgotten what fire felt like. Her smile was warm, but her eyes were distant — like they had their own weather system, beautiful and storm-tossed. He was drawn in before he could name the danger.
She was married. That came early. She didn't hide it. She wasn't cruel. Just honest.
He should've walked away.
But the lonely parts of him — the aching, abandoned rooms inside — opened their doors too wide, too fast. She stepped in and unknowingly made herself at home.
They became friends. At first, it was innocent. Late night texts. Long conversations about books, music, meaning. She made him feel like he mattered — not in some passing way, but in the way people do when they really see you. And god, she saw him. Not just the face he wore, but the cracked foundation beneath. She knew where he hurt.
And still, she stayed.
He fell hard. Quietly. Desperately. Hopelessly.
She never asked for it. She never led him on. But she didn't run, either. When he confessed — not all at once, but in broken pieces over time — she didn't flinch. She didn't scold or retreat. She held his truth like something fragile. Carefully. Sadly.
He told her everything. That he loved her, not in a fleeting crush kind of way, but in the way stars belong to the night sky — permanent, distant, unreachable. He told her how being around her was like breathing for the first time in years, and how that breath always came with a knife behind it.
And he told her, more than once, that he didn't always want to keep going.
Not in a dramatic, performative way. No theatrics. Just truth. Just exhaustion. Just the quiet admission that some nights were too long, and the weight of what he carried felt too heavy for one heart. He told her that sometimes, the only thing keeping him here was her.
That was the worst part. The guilt in her eyes when he said it. The pain of knowing he had laid that burden at her feet.
But she never ran.
She stayed up with him on those nights. Talked him through the darkness. Sent songs. Told him to breathe. Told him she was glad he existed. That the world was better with him in it. She meant it. He knew she did. But it was never the kind of love he needed — and both of them knew that.
She told him she loved him too, once. Not in the way he loved her. Not in the way that breaks bone and soul. But in the way a person loves a lighthouse — something that guides them, that keeps them from crashing.
But she had a life. A husband. A home he'd never enter. A future that didn't have his name carved into it.
And still, he stayed.
He listened to her stories. He dried her tears. He offered advice when her marriage hurt, even when every word he spoke was like swallowing glass. He watched her live a life just out of reach — and called it enough.
His friends told him he should walk away. That he was destroying himself. He nodded. Agreed. But couldn't do it. Because she had become the one fixed point in a world he no longer understood. And even if he couldn't have her — not truly — the idea of life without her at all was worse. Impossible.
So he suffered beside her. Silently, most days. Loudly, on the nights when the dark was too loud to ignore.
The depression didn't go away. It just changed shape.
Some days it whispered that he was pathetic. That he was wasting his life on a dream. That he was a placeholder — her emotional crutch, her safe space, her nothing. Other days it screamed that she'd be better off without him, that the texts and calls and conversations were pity more than anything else.
He didn't always fight back. Not well. Not strongly.
But her messages still came. Good mornings. "Thinking of you." Inside jokes. Half-hearted reassurances that he was important. Enough to keep him breathing. Not enough to make him feel alive.
One night, after another long conversation where she told him about an anniversary trip she was planning with her husband — her voice tired but not unhappy — he stayed on the phone after she hung up. Just listening to the silence.
He thought about how much he had given her. How much he would have given, if asked.
He thought about how she would cry if he disappeared — but only for a while.
And he realized something he'd always known but never dared to say aloud:
He would die for her.
But she would never leave her life for him.
Not even for a moment.
And still, he stayed.
Not because he was strong. But because leaving would break him more than staying ever could.
Because in the end, he had built his world around a ghost of a future that would never come.
And as he lay in bed that night, watching his phone for a message that wouldn't come —heart aching, soul unraveling —he whispered to the dark:
"What a wicked thing to do. To let me dream of you."
The kind of January that felt like an echo — grey skies, dead air, the world hollowed out and cold to the core. He wasn't looking for anything. He hadn't looked for anything in a long time. Life had become something he moved through, not something he lived in. Mornings were an act of willpower. Nights, a negotiation with the darkness.
Then she appeared.
A random introduction. A shared moment at a friend's gathering. She laughed at a joke he hadn't meant to say out loud, and just like that, a spark lit in a man who had nearly forgotten what fire felt like. Her smile was warm, but her eyes were distant — like they had their own weather system, beautiful and storm-tossed. He was drawn in before he could name the danger.
She was married. That came early. She didn't hide it. She wasn't cruel. Just honest.
He should've walked away.
But the lonely parts of him — the aching, abandoned rooms inside — opened their doors too wide, too fast. She stepped in and unknowingly made herself at home.
They became friends. At first, it was innocent. Late night texts. Long conversations about books, music, meaning. She made him feel like he mattered — not in some passing way, but in the way people do when they really see you. And god, she saw him. Not just the face he wore, but the cracked foundation beneath. She knew where he hurt.
And still, she stayed.
He fell hard. Quietly. Desperately. Hopelessly.
She never asked for it. She never led him on. But she didn't run, either. When he confessed — not all at once, but in broken pieces over time — she didn't flinch. She didn't scold or retreat. She held his truth like something fragile. Carefully. Sadly.
He told her everything. That he loved her, not in a fleeting crush kind of way, but in the way stars belong to the night sky — permanent, distant, unreachable. He told her how being around her was like breathing for the first time in years, and how that breath always came with a knife behind it.
And he told her, more than once, that he didn't always want to keep going.
Not in a dramatic, performative way. No theatrics. Just truth. Just exhaustion. Just the quiet admission that some nights were too long, and the weight of what he carried felt too heavy for one heart. He told her that sometimes, the only thing keeping him here was her.
That was the worst part. The guilt in her eyes when he said it. The pain of knowing he had laid that burden at her feet.
But she never ran.
She stayed up with him on those nights. Talked him through the darkness. Sent songs. Told him to breathe. Told him she was glad he existed. That the world was better with him in it. She meant it. He knew she did. But it was never the kind of love he needed — and both of them knew that.
She told him she loved him too, once. Not in the way he loved her. Not in the way that breaks bone and soul. But in the way a person loves a lighthouse — something that guides them, that keeps them from crashing.
But she had a life. A husband. A home he'd never enter. A future that didn't have his name carved into it.
And still, he stayed.
He listened to her stories. He dried her tears. He offered advice when her marriage hurt, even when every word he spoke was like swallowing glass. He watched her live a life just out of reach — and called it enough.
His friends told him he should walk away. That he was destroying himself. He nodded. Agreed. But couldn't do it. Because she had become the one fixed point in a world he no longer understood. And even if he couldn't have her — not truly — the idea of life without her at all was worse. Impossible.
So he suffered beside her. Silently, most days. Loudly, on the nights when the dark was too loud to ignore.
The depression didn't go away. It just changed shape.
Some days it whispered that he was pathetic. That he was wasting his life on a dream. That he was a placeholder — her emotional crutch, her safe space, her nothing. Other days it screamed that she'd be better off without him, that the texts and calls and conversations were pity more than anything else.
He didn't always fight back. Not well. Not strongly.
But her messages still came. Good mornings. "Thinking of you." Inside jokes. Half-hearted reassurances that he was important. Enough to keep him breathing. Not enough to make him feel alive.
One night, after another long conversation where she told him about an anniversary trip she was planning with her husband — her voice tired but not unhappy — he stayed on the phone after she hung up. Just listening to the silence.
He thought about how much he had given her. How much he would have given, if asked.
He thought about how she would cry if he disappeared — but only for a while.
And he realized something he'd always known but never dared to say aloud:
He would die for her.
But she would never leave her life for him.
Not even for a moment.
And still, he stayed.
Not because he was strong. But because leaving would break him more than staying ever could.
Because in the end, he had built his world around a ghost of a future that would never come.
And as he lay in bed that night, watching his phone for a message that wouldn't come —heart aching, soul unraveling —he whispered to the dark:
"What a wicked thing to do. To let me dream of you."