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"Do you love me? Want me? Hate me? Girl, I don’t understand…”
There are loves that make you feel like the center of the world.
And then there are those that make you feel like a guest in your own home.
Maya and Carina had been both. In turns. In rotation.
Like a swing that tricks you into thinking you can fly, only to pull you back to earth with a thud.
—
It was a gray morning. The kind that seemed to press down on the world like a sigh.
Maya sat at her small kitchen table, the one with the chipped corner they’d laughed about once. She held a chipped mug—one of Carina’s favorites—and stared blankly at her phone.
The message she had sent the night before was still there, marked “read,” untouched.
“Will you be around tonight? I miss you.”
She reread it four times. Then again. The words looked increasingly desperate the longer she stared.
Three hours. Four. Then six.
Still nothing.
She told herself it didn’t matter.
That Carina was probably busy. Distracted. That maybe she was tired, or lost in her own world again.
Maya, always the one to write love letters to someone who never remembered to read them.
The thing is, Carina wasn’t a villain. She didn’t lie. She didn’t yell.
When she was there, she was everything.
She would playfully tap Maya’s nose when she was overthinking. Tie her shoes when Maya was late and flustered.
Leave tiny notes like “Don’t forget: you’re enough.” hidden inside her notebooks.
She once waited outside Maya’s work for an hour just to walk her home under an umbrella.
And yet…
Those moments became fewer.
Harder to predict.
Harder to trust.
—
Maya had a notebook where she wrote things she didn’t dare say aloud.
One entry read:
“How can someone make you feel like a universe and then like a burden in the same breath?”
Another:
“I don’t know if I miss her or just the idea of who she was when she wanted to be kind.”
—
It was a Wednesday when Maya first felt the crack beneath the glass.
They had planned a movie night. Popcorn, wine, soft blankets. Their favorite film, which Carina had always pretended to hate but secretly loved.
Carina showed up an hour late.
Didn’t knock.
Didn’t even say hi—just dropped her bag on the couch and said, “Can we not do the movie? I’ve had a day.”
Maya smiled, nodded, said, “Of course.”
But that night, she stared at the blank TV screen long after Carina fell asleep on the couch, wondering why her heart felt so heavy when she was supposed to feel safe.
—
"Am I bothering you?"
She had sent that once, after two days of silence.
Carina’s reply:
"No, don’t be silly. Just tired."
Always just tired. Always a little off.
But never absent enough to let Maya walk away.
It was a dance. A loop.
Carina would pull away, and just when Maya reached her limit, she’d return. Smiling. Sweet. Holding flowers or saying something like “I was thinking about you all day.”
And Maya—stupid, loyal Maya—would forget the ache in her chest for a moment.
Because who wouldn’t chase warmth in the cold?
—
It was a Tuesday when Maya finally broke the loop.
It rained, of course. The kind of cinematic rain that soaked through your socks and made everything feel more dramatic than it already was.
She waited outside Carina’s apartment, wearing that green hoodie that Carina once said made her look like a “sad forest witch.”
Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty.
When Carina arrived, she looked tired. Distant.
As if Maya were just one more thing she had to deal with.
“Oh. You’re already here,” she said, pulling out her keys.
Maya didn’t answer immediately. She just watched her.
The way she avoided her eyes. The subtle slump of her shoulders. The weight Maya had learned to read too well.
"I texted you yesterday," she said quietly.
Carina nodded, already fiddling with her lock.
"Yeah… sorry. Just a rough week."
"It’s been rough for me too, Carina," Maya said.
"But I don’t disappear when it is."
Carina stopped moving.
She turned slowly, her face unreadable.
"You’re always so... intense, Maya."
That hit like a punch in the gut.
Because Maya had heard that before. From people who didn’t know how to hold what she felt.
From people who only loved the parts of her that were easy.
"No. I’m just someone who wants to be seen. Who wants to matter consistently. Not in bursts. Not only when it's convenient."
There was a long silence, broken only by the rhythm of the rain.
"You make me feel like I’m hard to love," Maya whispered.
Carina flinched.
Her lip trembled slightly, but she didn’t say anything.
"And maybe I am," Maya went on. "But I’ve spent so much time twisting myself into someone easier. Someone quieter. Someone smaller. And it still wasn’t enough."
"You’re not..." Carina began, but the words died in her throat.
Maya shook her head.
"I’m not angry because you don’t love me. I’m angry because you make me feel loved and then disappear. You make me question everything. You make me feel crazy for noticing when you're gone."
She stepped back.
One foot. Then another.
The hoodie was soaked now, clinging to her arms like a second skin.
"I keep walking toward you, and every time I do, you take three steps back."
Carina’s eyes were glossy now. She looked like she might say something. Apologize. Beg. Maybe lie.
But she didn’t.
And that silence said everything.
"This time," Maya said, her voice breaking but steady, "I’m walking away. And I’m not turning around."
—
That night, in her apartment, she sat by the window and let the silence fill the space where Carina used to sit.
The green hoodie was draped on the back of her chair.
Her phone was quiet.
No messages. No calls.
Not even a missed notification.
Maya watched the city lights blur behind raindrops and let the tears come.
Not because she missed Carina—though she did.
But because she had spent so long convincing herself she didn’t deserve more.
And now, finally, she was letting herself believe otherwise.
—
One step forward.
Three steps back.
But for the first time, those steps were taking her somewhere better.