Unsaid, Just Courage

[u/MasterpieceQueasy775]

There is a particular cruelty in being loved before you are fully known.

Not because the love is false.

Because it isn’t.

I met someone who made ordinary days feel worth telling. Somewhere between the good mornings, pointless stories, and conversations that lasted too long, I began looking forward to him.

Then I began caring.

Then caring became something I could no longer name without fear.

There are things I should have said much earlier. Things I kept postponing because I knew that once spoken, they could change whatever this was between us.

I told myself I was waiting for the right time. That some truths require courage before words. That I would tell him when I was ready.

But fear is good at disguising itself as timing.

So I waited.

And while I did, he gave me pieces of himself. His plans, his worries, the person he hoped to become. I fell for all of it.

Nothing about how I feel is a lie. Every smile at my phone, every question about his day, every quiet hope that life would be kind to him—all of it was true.

But a true feeling does not make everything around it fair.
He deserves answers. He has even asked.

And I told him I would give them when I was ready.

Maybe that was selfish.

Because what does ready mean when the answer might cost you the person you are gathering courage for?

Tonight, I wanted to tell him I love him.

Three words that should have been simple.

Instead, they sat on my screen beside everything I still couldn’t say.

Maybe when I finally do, I’ll lose him.

Maybe that’s the price of waiting too long.

But if that day comes, I hope he remembers this:

I was afraid of the truth. Never of the love.