It happens then, on a random day long into the future, years after we first spoke of it.
You do the thing I asked you to do. The one you said you could never do. That wasn’t possible with your history, with your background. It had been completely ruined by your past relationships. By people who had been bad to you. It wasn’t possible — and the very fact that I was bringing it up as something I wanted traumatized you slightly.
I had no idea. I felt terrible.
I gave up then that it would be a possibility. I figured out an entire world in which you never did this thing. And I settled into that world.
Because the last thing I wanted to do was pressure you. Or make you feel like you weren’t enough exactly the way you were.
Because you were. You were more than enough. You were more than I thought I’d ever get. More than I thought was realistic for me to want.
More than I frankly knew existed before I met you. So I never needed you to do that. I just decided to work around it.
And then it happens, on some random day, years and years after we first spoke of it. You do it. All on your own.
And when you do, my brain kind of buzzes. I feel stunned by the development, like something fell from the sky and hit me on the head. Like reality is melting. I can hardly believe it’s just happened.
“Okay, that was kind of weird,” I say. “But I appreciate you doing it.” I laugh and then add, “Weird because you don’t just do stuff like that. Not because you did a bad job.”
“I can change,” you say.
“No, you can’t!” I say. “People don’t change, remember? Edgelords say so.”
And we laugh and laugh.