The Cruel Type of Love

I never thought loving someone would mean walking away from them. But sometimes, the deepest kind of care the most selfless kind looks nothing like the movies. Sometimes it’s not holding on. Sometimes, it’s letting go.

I walked away, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. Not for me, but for him. To protect him from the noise, the judgment, the chaos that always seems to follow me like a shadow. I saw how they looked at us. I heard what they said. The assumptions, the whispers, the way they made him question what never needed to be questioned. And it killed me. Because he didn’t deserve any of it.

He deserved peace. And if my presence was the storm, then maybe just maybe my absence could be the calm. That’s the story I tell myself, anyway. That stepping back was an act of love, not surrender. That I didn’t give up on him I gave him space to breathe. But that’s just the poetic version, the one that makes the pain sound noble.

The truth? It has destroyed me.

Every day without him feels like a silent ache. There’s a stillness now where laughter used to live. I miss the ridiculous jokes, the safe space, the moments we never had to explain. He was my person. The one I wanted to share everything with messy or magical. And now I write letters I can’t send, revisit memories I can’t recreate, carry love that has nowhere to go.

I keep telling myself this was the right thing. That in time, it will make sense. That one day he’ll understand why I did it. But most days, I just feel hollow. Because I didn’t walk away to save myself. I walked away to save him. And that’s a kind of heartbreak no one talks about the kind where you lose someone not out of anger, not out of betrayal, but out of love too big to be understood.

I hope he’s okay. I hope he’s happy. I hope he knows that even in silence, he means the world to me. That even if I’m not beside him, I’m always rooting for him from afar. And if he ever looks back, I hope he knows I never stopped loving our friendship. I just loved him more than it could survive.