Page 54 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

Because—truth was—he wasn’t wrong.

“I thought you were okay,” he added. “Or at least… okay enough without talking to me. You never gave me a reason to think otherwise.”

I felt something shift in my chest. Not sharp. Not immediate. But heavy. Like something sinking deeper the longer I sat with it.

Because in my head, I had been feeling everything.

Every doubt.

Every insecurity.

Every moment I felt hurt or unsure or left behind.

I had lived through all of it so vividly.

But to him, I had been quiet.

I looked down at my hands, suddenly unsure of what to do with them.

Part of me wanted to push back—to say that he should have known. That he should have seen it. That he should’ve felt it without me having to say it out loud. Because how could he have known…

…if I never told him?

The silence between us stretched, longer than I wanted it to be.

But it didn’t feel empty. It felt like something was forming in the hush. Something uncomfortable. Something I had been avoiding for a long time.

I leaned forward slightly, my elbows resting on my knees, my thoughts finally starting to catch up with me.

All this time, I thought staying quiet was me protecting what we had. I thought not complaining, not asking for more, not saying when I was hurt was what kept things together.

That was what made me so easy to love and easy to keep. But the truth was, it didn’t keep anything. If anything, it made things easier to lose, because nothing was ever actually fixed with silence. Nothing was ever actually understood. It just stayed there—unsaid, unresolved, until there was nothing left to hold on to.

I swallowed, the realization settling in deeper now, heavier than before.

And suddenly, without trying to, my mind went back to Victor.

To all the times I chose silence over honesty, thinking it would protect what we had.

But silence doesn’t protect anything. It just delays the ending.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

The words came out before I could stop them.

But Francis shook his head almost immediately.

“No,” he said gently. “Don’t do that.”

I looked up at him, a little confused.

“Do not ever apologize,” he continued. “Not for that.”

I hesitated. “But I⁠—”

“We both had our lapses,” he said, cutting in softly, but firmly enough to stop me. “It wasn’t just you.”

I stayed quiet, letting him speak.