Same-Old Tale

We both remained foolish.

Seven years have passed, and somehow neither of us has gotten any better at building boundaries.

If anything, we are still stuck at trying to build one—in every possible way.

Every failed attempt, every awkward conversation, somehow finds its way back to that night.

A phone call.

A short elevator ride.

Soft longings neither of us should have entertained.

The night was no longer young, and everything already felt blurry.

My consciousness recognised very little. I was simply moving on feelings and whatever was left of my wavering self-control.

My heart was making a mess of itself. Old emotions, wounded and impatient, demanded to be acknowledged. Tears followed before I could stop them.

And the fragile walls I liked to call logic collapsed over something as stupidly simple as—

“You smell good.”

A quick touch on my waist.

A smile.

Our hands brushing for barely a second.

That was all it took to awaken the old instinct to keep each other inside that small territory we once called ours.

He told me he was tired. Life had been hard, he said, and all he wanted was a hug.

Not advice.

Not questions.

Just one tight, no-questions-asked hug.

And of course, I fell straight into the familiar trap.

The kind of hug that spreads warmth into corners of me I somehow cannot reach unless I am with him.

I eventually forced myself to untangle from him and changed the subject to work. He asked about mine. I asked about his. Somehow, an hour disappeared.

Then I saw his new phone light up.

That bloody goddamn phone—the same one that somehow became his excuse for getting me to unblock him on Instagram.

For a while, the silence felt necessary.

We were both buried in something else. Me, in my thoughts. Him, in his work phone.

“I’ll be right with you.”

When he came back, he sat beside me.

And then that feeling arrived.

That familiar, dangerous quiet where nothing had to be said because both of us already knew where it was going.

And somehow, neither of us intended to stop it.

“How are you doing? You good?”

“We need to talk.”

“Yeah. Sure. What is it?”

“What happened to us? What went wrong? What did I do wrong?”

No.

He never really had the chance to answer.

Because I did not actually want to hear him, yet.

“I’m trying to understand.”

The way we communicate has always been difficult to explain.

We speak in a language that only makes sense to us. Not exactly riddles, but never completely direct either.

But that night, I had no patience for our usual language.

I wanted answers.

I wanted to know why he still showed up with that smile I hate admitting I missed.

So I talked.

I ranted.

I told him every ugly truth I had carried quietly.

And he listened.

He listened without making me feel foolish. Without humiliating me. Without judging me for still feeling everything I had spent years pretending I no longer felt.

Strangely, instead of shame, I felt seen. Heard. Understood.

He took my hands and started telling me stories—half of which I already knew.

“I know we’re not together. You made that clear. But your actions made everything confusing.”

He nodded.

“I know. Back then, I didn’t know what I wanted.”

“Do you now?”

Morning came.

Then the headache.

Then regret, quietly crawling in through every space that night had left open.

A week passed, but the feelings refused to settle.

Eventually, a message was sent.

A cruel one. -filled with accusations I knew would hurt, but justified it as a means to an end.

I knew I couldn’t keep doing this. A bigger part of me also knew I shouldn’t.

Life had already moved forward, whether I liked it or not, dragging along scars he had somehow kept reopening.

“I knew this day would come.”

“What else do you want to hear from me?”

“I promise I won’t disturb you anymore.” - a lie we both know far too well.

Still, this time, my will felt stronger.

We managed to stay civil.

We tried wearing this new version of ourselves called friendship as if it fit.

We talked about our day, work and where life had taken us since the last time we really spoke.

But who were we kidding?

We never truly stop rehearsing the very thing we swore we would avoid.

Agree to disagree, yet somehow neither of us ever accepts defeat.

We keep throwing small invitations toward each other just to see whether the fragile thing we tried so hard to build can survive another familiar argument.

And somehow—

“What happened to you and your boyfriend?”

became—

“You have someone. Not wise for me to come to you and ask you to make me forget about everything."

only for it to end with—

“As far as I’m concerned, the last time we had this conversation, it didn’t end well. I felt humiliated.”

So yes.

We are both still foolish.

Still inviting waves into walls that were already broken, then innocently calling those walls boundaries.

One of us spinning endlessly inside what-ifs.

The other trapped in his own selfish orbit, circling outcomes he already knows.

And both of us, somehow, still deeply buried in denial over the one thing we should have done years ago.

Cut ties.

Create distance.

Quietly heal without constantly finding our way back.