The Girl Who Stayed Too Long
I once asked Steven why he stayed.
Not why he loved me. Not why he hadn’t made me his girlfriend because thats one thing I simply didn’t qualify for. Not even why, after all this fucking time, we were still doing whatever the hell it was we were doing.
Just why he stayed.
“I like it here.”
That was his answer.
Four words.
I remember staring at him, waiting for the rest of the sentence. Surely there was more. A because you make me happy. A because I love you. Shit, even a because I don’t want to lose you would’ve given me something to work with.
But no.
“I like it here.”
And the fucked-up part?
I understood exactly what he meant.
Because I liked it there, too.
I liked the way he made me laugh. The way his smart-ass mouth could turn the most ordinary conversation into something that had me smiling at my phone like a teenager. I liked the way he challenged my opinions, even when I knew he was just being difficult for the sake of being difficult.
I liked our movie nights.
The ones where we’d spend more time deciding what to watch than actually watching anything. Where I’d curl into him, his arms wrapped around me, and for a few hours, the world outside of us didn’t exist.
I liked how gentle he could be.
And I don’t mean gentle in that performative, soft-spoken way some men adopt when they’re trying to get something from you.
Steven had a gentleness that showed up in moments I don’t think he even realized mattered.
In the way he’d hold me.
The way he’d listen when I talked.
The way we could disagree about something, laugh about it, and move on.
The way his body would relax when I settled against him, like maybe, just maybe, he needed that closeness as much as I did.
There were moments when I felt loved without him having to say it.
And God, did I hold on to those moments.
Because some days, they were enough for me.
Even when they weren’t enough for me.
That’s the part nobody really understands about loving somebody who doesn’t love you the way you need them to.
It isn’t always bad.
Sometimes it’s so fucking good that you start questioning whether you’re asking for too much.
Whether the title really matters.
Whether you need to hear the words when you can feel the affection.
Whether wanting more makes you ungrateful for what you already have.
And sometimes, when you’re lying in somebody’s arms, feeling their heartbeat against your cheek, you convince yourself that whatever this is must be love.
Because what else could it be?
What else makes you feel that safe and that uncertain at the same damn time?
My friends used to be excited about Steven.
That sounds so ridiculous now, considering some of them never even met the man.
But in the beginning?
Baby, I talked about Steven like somebody had already sent out the save-the-dates.
Not because he had proposed. Not because we’d discussed marriage in any serious capacity. Not because he’d even given me the security of knowing I was his girlfriend.
I was just that sure.
You couldn’t tell me shit.
I knew what I felt, and I believed what I felt meant something.
I’d mention him casually, then somehow spend the next forty-five minutes talking about him.
What he said.
What we laughed about.
What he was working toward.
How proud I was of him.
My friends knew his name, his personality, and enough about his life to feel like they knew him.
And naturally, they wanted to meet him.
“When are we finally meeting this man?”
“Girl, soon.”
That was always my answer.
Soon.
Such a convenient little word.
Soon could mean next weekend. Next month. Next year. Soon didn’t require a date, a plan, or any actual fucking evidence that something was going to happen.
It just required hope.
And I had plenty of that.
At the time, I was still living back home in another state. Steven and I were doing the long-distance thing, although looking back, I’m not entirely sure we were doing the same thing.
I was doing long-distance love.
He was doing whatever worked for him.
And I don’t say that to be cruel.
I say it because that’s what it felt like.
I was making space for him in a life he wasn’t physically present in. I was thinking about visits, planning around schedules, imagining the next time we’d see each other.
But he rarely came to me.
Actually, let me stop making that sound prettier than it was.
He didn’t really come to see me.
And eventually, people noticed.
Because there’s only so many times you can tell your friends about this amazing man before somebody starts wondering why the amazing man never seems to show up.
My mother knew about Steven.
That should tell you everything.
I wasn’t the kind of woman who introduced every man I entertained into conversations with my mother. If she knew about you, there was a reason.
And I was so sure about him.
So fucking sure.
Yet the man I believed could be my forever never met my mother.
Imagine that.
A whole future planned in my head, and the two people standing at the center of it had never even shaken hands.
At first, my friends asked questions out of excitement.
Then curiosity.
Then concern.
And eventually, I started hearing the doubt underneath their words.
“So what are y’all?”
“Are y’all actually together?”
“When is he coming to visit?”
“Does he want a relationship?”
I hated those questions.
Not because they were unfair.
Because I didn’t have answers.
Or worse, because I did.
I just didn’t want to say them out loud.
The thing about being a therapist is that people assume you have some special immunity to making emotionally irresponsible decisions.
As if understanding attachment patterns means you can’t get attached to somebody who isn’t meeting your needs.
As if knowing the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationship dynamics automatically means you’re going to choose the healthy one.
Please.
I could sit across from somebody all day and help them identify the ways they were abandoning themselves.
Then go home and do the exact same shit.
With confidence.
With enthusiasm.
With a master’s degree.
Actually, with three degrees and enough emotional vocabulary to explain precisely why I was acting a damn fool.
I knew what avoidance looked like.
I knew what inconsistent emotional availability could do to a person.
I knew that communication required more than one person being willing to have uncomfortable conversations.
And I knew I was afraid to ask Steven questions because I was afraid of his answers.
There.
That’s the truth.
I wasn’t confused about what I wanted.
I wanted him.
I wanted to date him.
I wanted him to be present.
I wanted the ordinary things that people in relationships sometimes take for granted.
A man who wanted to see me.
A man who made plans.
A man who called because he missed my voice.
A man who could look at me and say, without hesitation, That’s my woman.
I wasn’t asking for perfection.
I wasn’t asking him to have every dollar accounted for, every goal accomplished, or every piece of his life neatly arranged.
I wanted to be included in the life he was still figuring out.
But somewhere along the way, I started believing that asking for those things would make me difficult.
That expressing how much I loved him would overwhelm him.
That wanting reassurance would make him pull away.
So I became quiet.
And anybody who knows me knows that being quiet about my feelings is not exactly my natural state.
But Steven made me shy.
Not the cute kind of shy where you’re blushing because somebody you like compliments you.
I mean the kind where you rehearse a conversation in your head fifteen times and still can’t get the words out.
The kind where you want to ask, What am I to you? but your throat tightens because you already know the answer might break your heart.
The kind where you convince yourself that peace means not bringing something up.
Even when the silence is eating you alive.
I knew my feelings sometimes made him anxious.
Or at least, that was how I understood his reactions.
And because I loved him, I wanted to make things easier for him.
So I said less.
Wanted less.
Asked less.
Or pretended to.
Because I still wanted every fucking thing.
I just learned how to want it quietly.
There were other men.
That’s another part of the story people don’t understand.
Steven wasn’t the only man interested in me.
I wasn’t sitting around in some dusty apartment waiting for the last eligible man on earth to finally discover my existence.
Men approached me.
Men asked me out.
Men made their intentions known.
I had flowers delivered to my door from men who weren’t Steven.
Lunch sent to my job.
Drinks bought for me at bars.
Dates planned by men who seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me.
And sometimes I accepted the attention.
Sometimes I entertained a conversation.
Sometimes I even agreed to a date.
Then the day would come, and I’d find some reason not to go.
Because what the hell was I doing?
I didn’t want them.
I wanted Steven.
It didn’t matter how attractive they were or how intentional they seemed.
They weren’t him.
And I know how that sounds.
Trust me, I fucking know.
Here I was, wanting a man to choose me while actively turning down men who were trying to do exactly that.
But love doesn’t become transferable just because somebody else is willing to receive it.
I couldn’t take what I felt for Steven and hand it to the next man who bought me flowers.
It didn’t work like that.
And I wasn’t interested in using somebody else to fill a space I was still hoping Steven would occupy.
So I remained loyal.
Not because Steven asked me to.
Not because we’d made some mutual commitment.
Not because he’d promised to do the same.
I was loyal because, in my heart, I was already his.
And that’s embarrassing to admit.
Because I don’t know if he ever considered himself mine.
I don’t even know if he understood the kind of loyalty I was giving him.
There were women in the world he was free to entertain, and I knew that.
I knew he wasn’t necessarily turning anybody away on my behalf.
Yet there I was, turning people away for a relationship I couldn’t even confidently explain to my friends.
A whole girlfriend without a boyfriend.
A woman dating a man who wasn’t necessarily dating her.
And the wildest part?
I was in love.
Deeply.
Stupidly.
Beautifully.
Painfully.
In love.
I think Steven wanted to be a certain kind of man before he allowed himself to become anything else.
The kind with his finances in order.
His career established.
His responsibilities handled.
The kind who could look around at his life and feel like he’d finally accomplished enough to breathe.
I saw that in him.
I saw his ambition.
His frustration.
The pressure he seemed to carry.
And there were days I could see him breaking.
He didn’t always say it.
Sometimes it was in his voice. Sometimes it was the way he’d become quieter than usual. Sometimes it was just something I felt when we were together.
I could tell when the weight of life was getting heavy.
And on those days, I loved him harder.
I know.
I know how that sounds, too.
But I never wanted Steven to feel like he had to become some perfectly assembled version of himself before he deserved love.
I wanted him to know he was worthy of it right there.
In the middle of the uncertainty.
In the middle of the struggle.
On the days when he didn’t have the answers.
On the days when nothing seemed to be going according to plan.
I wanted to love him through all of it.
When his back was against the wall, I made sure I was holding his heart in one hand and standing on the other side of that same wall, trying to keep it from falling.
That’s how much I believed in that man.
I prayed for Steven the way only a grandmother could.
And if you know anything about grandmothers, especially the kind who have lived long enough to know that life can humble anybody, you know those aren’t casual prayers.
Those are the prayers that call on God by every name you know.
The ones where you’re asking Him to protect somebody’s mind, order their steps, cover their spirit, and make a way when the road ahead looks impossible.
I prayed over his future.
His peace.
His decisions.
His health.
His happiness.
The things he shared with me and the things I suspected he carried alone.
Sometimes I’d be praying for myself, and his name would find its way into the conversation.
Because loving Steven had become that natural.
He was part of my everyday life.
Part of my routine.
Part of the way I imagined tomorrow.
And somewhere deep inside me, I believed God had placed him in my life for a reason.
Maybe I was supposed to cover him in love while the parts of him that were hurting learned how to heal.
Maybe I was supposed to remind him that he was more than his accomplishments.
Maybe I was supposed to be a soft place in a world that kept demanding he be hard.
I didn’t know.
I just knew I loved him.
And I wanted that love to be good for him.
But I wonder now whether he understood what I was trying to give him.
Whether he recognized how carefully I held the parts of himself he let me see.
Whether he knew how much I wanted him to succeed, even when his success seemed to leave less and less room for me.
And sometimes I wonder if I became so committed to helping him feel whole that I stopped paying attention to the parts of myself that were falling apart.
Because who was holding me?
Who was praying for the version of me who cried herself to sleep?
Who was standing on the other side of my wall?
I had people who loved me, of course.
Family.
Friends.
People who would’ve shown up if I’d told them how badly I was hurting.
But I wanted Steven.
And wanting somebody who doesn’t know how to show up for you can make an otherwise full life feel painfully empty.
I remember the first time we really stopped talking.
Not one of those little disagreements where somebody gets irritated and needs a few hours.
I mean the kind of silence that makes you realize you might actually be losing somebody.
I’d seen Steven presenting himself as single.
Not just in the vague, technically-not-in-a-relationship way I’d spent months trying to rationalize.
I saw him on a singles page.
A fucking singles page.
I remember staring at it.
My stomach dropped.
And for a moment, I felt so stupid I couldn’t even cry.
Because what exactly was I supposed to be upset about?
He wasn’t my boyfriend.
He hadn’t promised exclusivity.
He hadn’t made some grand declaration that we belonged to each other.
So technically, what had he done wrong?
That was the question I kept asking myself.
And I hated it.
Because I was so tired of using technicalities to explain away things that hurt me.
I didn’t need a legal argument for why my feelings mattered.
I was in love with this man.
And there he was, publicly available.
While I was privately devoted.
I broke down.
Badly.
I tried to explain what it felt like to see that.
How unchosen I felt.
How unserious it made me feel.
How humiliating it was to realize I had built so much emotional commitment around somebody who was still presenting himself as available to the world.
I wanted him to understand.
I wanted him to say something that would make it hurt less.
Instead, I felt like my emotions were irritating him.
Like the conversation itself was something he wanted to escape.
His responses were limited.
His distance was loud.
And the more I tried to explain, the more desperate I felt.
I hated the sound of my own voice.
Hated how much I needed him to understand something that seemed so obvious to me.
I wasn’t asking him to apologize for being single.
I was asking him to understand what it felt like to love somebody who kept reminding you that you weren’t his.
But maybe that was the problem.
I wanted him to understand the relationship through my feelings.
And he was living it through his own.
Two completely different experiences.
One shared history.
And neither of us standing in the same place.
After that, I stopped telling my friends everything.
Not because I didn’t trust them.
Because I knew what they’d say.
“Seven, leave him alone.”
“Girl, what are you waiting for?”
“You deserve better than this.”
And the worst one?
“Why are you still dealing with him?”
Because how the fuck was I supposed to answer that?
How do you explain that the same man who made you feel so unwanted could also make you feel so deeply loved in certain moments?
How do you explain that you know the relationship isn’t giving you what you need, but the thought of never hearing his laugh again makes your chest hurt?
How do you tell somebody you want to leave without actually wanting to leave?
That you want things to change, but you don’t want the person to change?
That you’re tired of being hurt, but the thought of somebody else taking your place hurts, too?
So I told them a little.
And a lot.
I’d mention the good days.
Leave out the bad ones.
Defend things I didn’t fully understand.
Make excuses I didn’t entirely believe.
And sometimes I’d avoid talking about him altogether.
Because I couldn’t stand the thought of the people who loved me looking at me like I was stupid.
I already felt stupid enough.
When I moved to another state, I told myself I was going for two reasons.
Love and money.
Steven and my career.
Those were the two things I was determined to build.
I imagined what it would be like to finally live closer to him.
No more distance standing between us.
No more wondering when we’d see each other again.
Maybe we’d go on actual dates.
Maybe he’d come over after work.
Maybe we’d spend Saturdays doing absolutely nothing together.
Grocery shopping.
Cooking dinner.
Arguing over whose turn it was to pick the movie.
The ordinary shit.
I didn’t need some extravagant love story.
I wanted the kind of love that could exist on a random Wednesday.
The kind where somebody asks if you’ve eaten.
The kind where you know you have a person.
And I thought maybe distance had been the problem.
Maybe once we were closer, everything would make sense.
But I made myself a promise before I moved.
If one of those two things didn’t work out, the other one damn sure would.
If love failed me, money wouldn’t.
If Steven didn’t choose me, I was going to choose my career so aggressively that failure wouldn’t have a place to sit.
I would work.
Build.
Learn.
Earn.
Create a life I could be proud of.
Because I couldn’t stomach the thought of moving my entire life with two dreams in my hands and watching both of them fall apart.
And maybe that was another way I tried to protect myself.
I couldn’t control whether Steven wanted me.
But I could control how hard I worked.
I could apply for the job.
Show up for the interview.
Earn the degree.
Build the résumé.
Put money in my account.
I could do everything right professionally and have something to show for it.
Love didn’t work like that.
There was no application I could submit that would make Steven ready.
No certification I could earn that would convince him I was worth choosing.
No amount of experience that could qualify me for the position of being his woman.
And believe me, I had the experience.
Two years’ worth of loving that man.
No title.
No benefits.
And apparently no guarantee of advancement.
I would’ve laughed if it hadn’t been so fucking sad.
But here’s the thing about Steven.
Even now, after everything, I can’t bring myself to pretend he was all bad.
He wasn’t.
And I refuse to rewrite him into some heartless monster just because our story didn’t end the way I wanted.
I saw his heart.
I knew his tenderness.
I knew the man who could make me laugh until my stomach hurt.
The man whose arms felt familiar.
The man who could turn an ordinary evening into something I’d think about for days afterward.
I knew what it felt like to be beside him and wish time would slow down.
And I believe he cared about me.
I believe there was love there.
Maybe not the kind I needed.
Maybe not the kind he could articulate.
Maybe not the kind that made him want to build a future with me.
But something.
Something real enough that I felt it.
Something that kept me there long after I knew I was hurting.
And maybe that’s what makes this so difficult.
Because it would be easier if I could say he never cared.
Easier if I could point to one horrible thing and declare that it erased every beautiful moment.
Easier if I hated him.
But I don’t.
I love Steven.
I love the fuck out of Steven.
And there are days when I wish that weren’t true.
Not because I’m ashamed of loving him.
But because I don’t know where to put all of it now.
Where do you put the love when the person is no longer yours to love out loud?
Where do the prayers go?
The inside jokes?
The memories?
The future you rehearsed so many times it started to feel like something you’d already lived?
Do you just wake up one morning and decide none of it matters?
Because I haven’t figured out how to do that.
And frankly, I don’t think I want to.
I don’t want to forget the good parts.
I don’t want to pretend I didn’t love him with everything I had.
I don’t want to erase the version of myself who believed so fiercely in us.
I just wish she’d known that believing in something doesn’t always make it possible.
When I finally walked away, there was a part of me that hoped he’d come looking for me.
Of course there was.
I wanted him to feel my absence.
I wanted him to reach for his phone and realize I wasn’t there.
To have a hard day and miss the woman who would’ve listened.
To hear something funny and wish he could tell me.
To lie in bed and remember the way I fit against him.
To remember how I prayed for him.
How I encouraged him.
How I loved him when he didn’t have everything figured out.
I wanted him to wake up one day and realize that what we had was worth fighting for.
And I wanted him to say the words I’d spent so long hoping to hear.
I love you.
I choose you.
Let’s make us work.
Not because I begged.
Not because I cried.
Not because I finally found the perfect combination of words to explain why I deserved to be loved.
But because he wanted to.
Because he looked at his life and saw a place for me in it.
Because forever with me was something he desired, not something he felt pressured to give.
But there was another part of me.
The part I’d spent two years trying not to listen to.
The part that knew Steven might simply let me go.
That he might miss me and still not come back.
That he might think about me, care about me, even love me in his own way, and still decide that a life without me was the life he wanted.
And I had to learn how to live with that possibility.
Because you can’t force somebody to want forever with you when they barely wanted twenty-four hours.
You can’t love somebody into readiness.
You can’t pray somebody into choosing you.
You can’t make yourself small enough to fit into a space that was never offered.
And you can’t lose what you never had.
God, I hated that last one.
Because I felt like I’d lost everything.
My person.
My plans.
My imagined future.
The man I wanted to tell about my day.
The man I wanted beside me when something good happened.
The man I wanted to come home to.
But the truth was, I had never really had those things in the way I imagined.
I had moments.
Beautiful ones.
Real ones.
Moments I wouldn’t trade, even knowing how much they would eventually hurt.
But moments weren’t a relationship.
And I couldn’t keep building a forever out of somebody else’s temporary.
So I walked away.
Not because I stopped loving him.
Not because I was suddenly healed.
Not because I found somebody who made me forget his name.
And definitely not because I was certain I wouldn’t answer if he called.
I walked away because I was tired of being the only one trying to turn I like it here into I want to stay.
And maybe that’s what love looks like sometimes.
Not the kind in movies where somebody runs through an airport or shows up outside your window with some grand declaration.
Maybe sometimes love looks like leaving somebody you still want to spend your life with.
Maybe it looks like praying for them from a distance.
Maybe it looks like accepting that the man you love can be a good man and still not be the man who chooses you.
I don’t know.
I’m still figuring that part out.
What I do know is that I loved Steven in a way I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain completely.
And despite everything, there is still a part of me that believes he was my person.
Maybe that’s foolish.
Maybe that’s romantic.
Maybe that’s just what happens when you’ve spent so long loving somebody that their absence doesn’t immediately feel like the end.
I used to hear people say that what’s meant for you will always find its way back.
That what’s yours will never pass you by.
And I believed that.
Hell, some days I still do.
But I don’t know what to do with the possibility that Steven was meant to be part of my life without being meant to stay in it.
I don’t know how to reconcile loving somebody this much with the possibility that God never intended for us to have the future I imagined.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop hoping.
Maybe one day I’ll hear his name and feel nothing but gratitude.
Maybe one day I’ll fall in love with somebody who makes me understand why this didn’t work.
Or maybe I’ll be eighty years old, sitting somewhere with a cup of tea, and a song will come on that reminds me of the way Steven used to hold me.
And I’ll smile.
Because once upon a time, I loved a man who made me laugh.
A man whose heart I saw even when he struggled to see it himself.
A man I prayed for the way only a grandmother could.
A man I wanted forever with.
And for a little while, in the quiet moments between everything we weren’t, I got to feel what loving him was like.
I just wish he had wanted to live there with me.
Because the truth is, Steven…
I liked it there, too.
I just wanted to stay.
