I fell the way only the young can - completely, recklessly, believing swagger was the same thing as love.
Years later, we met one final time. He brought me a new backpack, as though something tangible could replace all that had been lost. But this time, I spoke. I told him what the gaslighting had cost me, how the avoidance had quietly bruised me from the inside out, and how long it takes to untangle yourself from someone else’s permission to feel worthy.
It wasn’t the closure I once imagined.
It was better.
It was mine.
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