Cause I know that they get scared when I’m left alone

“I’m in love with the man you’ll never become.”
That line resonates with me more than I’d like to admit. I’ve fallen in love with men’s potential over and over again. Sometimes, they did reach it — just never with me.

The truth is, I wouldn’t even know how to love someone who wasn’t at least a little bit broken. There’s a reason I’m drawn to the ones who resemble my father in some way. It’s not intentional. Subconsciously, I think I’m desperate to save them — to somehow redeem myself for not being able to save him. That probably makes me at least a little unwell.

“Death changes everything, time changes nothing.”

Suicide is the kind of tragedy that happens to other people. You sympathize, but you can’t truly relate. Not until it happens to you. I will never forget the day it stopped being someone else’s story and became mine. That day, something inside me shifted. I haven’t been the same girl since.

In that moment, even my own will to live was tested. I didn’t want to just see him again — I wanted to rest next to him, permanently. In time, that feeling mutated into guilt. Why didn’t I see that his days were numbered? Why wasn’t I enough to make him want to stay? Why did he leave me?

Fifteen years have passed, and I still imagine him reappearing. I wonder if he would even recognize me now. I’ve aged, of course — but it’s not my face I worry about. It’s the weight I carry. I took on his burdens. My shoulders have grown heavy. My mannerisms have changed. I fear he’d walk right past me, still looking for the girl he left behind. The day he died, I did too.

My soul had already brushed against the darkest parts of life before that day — but I still clung to my childish belief in good people and fairy-tale endings. Even after all the ugly, I wanted to believe. Losing him, in the middle of an ugly divorce, tore those illusions from me.

Now, fear has taken root in me. It’s permanent. And I’ve become the darkness I used to be so afraid of.

The light I once carried so easily… now it feels forced. Silver linings feel like arguments I make just to keep people calm. The joy that used to exist all around me? I have to hunt for it. I can’t even remember what it felt like to wake up happy.

But here’s the thing — I still believe in happy endings. Just not for me. People like me… we’re meant to serve as cautionary tales. I’ve accepted that.

And yet — some quiet part of me still whispers that I could be wrong.

I just don’t think it’s fair to ask anyone else to prove me wrong. Not again. I can’t afford to hope like that anymore.