I love him when he’s here, when his touch feels like home, when his voice wraps around me like the first breath of morning. When we’re together, it’s like the world makes sense. His laughter fills the empty spaces in my chest, and for a moment, I believe in something steady, something real. But then he leaves. And suddenly, the silence is too loud, the distance too wide. I’m left with this ache, this gnawing feeling like I’m falling, and no one’s there to catch me. Is this normal? Should I feel like I’m missing pieces of myself, like my skin is too tight without him, like I’m walking through life with holes in my heart where his hands used to be? I don’t know. But the pain hurts in a way that feels like truth, like I’m meant to be tangled in his orbit, meant to share space, meant to breathe together. But I can’t I can’t be that person who clings, who needs him too much, who lets my world crumble when he’s gone. So I pull back. Pretend I’m fine, pretend that I’m not counting the seconds until I can hear his voice again, pretend that my heart isn’t racing when his name lights up my screen. I act calm, like I don’t care, like his absence doesn’t leave a hole that I’m trying to fill with anything but the one thing I can’t have. I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want him to see the ache in my chest, the way my soul yearns for him like it was born to love him, to miss him, to need him. But I’m afraid afraid that if I show him this part of me, he’ll see it as too much, and I’ll lose him in the same way I’m losing myself, slowly, bit by bit. So I keep quiet. I keep pretending. I love him when I can, and when I can’t, I hope he feels it too.