Chapter Text
POV: Nathan
They always say people like me feel things too deeply. That we attach too fast, love too hard, want too much. I never argued with that. I only wondered why no one ever asked what it feels like to carry that weight alone, this constant intensity, this need to be seen, chosen, anchored.
I don’t remember the exact moment he became important. I only remember the feeling, quiet at first, almost harmless. A presence. A pull. Like recognizing something you didn’t know you were searching for until it suddenly stood in front of you.
I told myself it was innocent. That began as curiosity. Admiration. The kind you justify easily. But if I’m honest, if I strip away the lies I learned to tell myself, it was never neutral. It was immediate. The way my attention locked onto him, the way the world narrowed until he became the center and everything else softened around the edges.
I noticed details no one else seemed to care about. The way he stood when he thought no one was watching. The pauses in his speech, the flicker of something unguarded in his eyes. I told myself this was normal. That was how connection began. That this was what it meant to feel alive.
I didn’t know then how dangerous that thought was.
Because once I noticed him, I couldn’t stop. And once I couldn’t stop, I started building my life around the idea of him, quietly, carefully, telling myself it was still under control. I was always good at that. At appearing composed. At letting people believe I was harmless, observant, thoughtful. Never obsessive. Never desperate.
But I was always more than people expected.
I wanted to be the place where he rested. The constant. The one thing that never left. And somewhere along the way, that want stopped being gentle. It sharpened. It demanded space. It demanded justification. It demanded sacrifice.
Mine first. Then others.
Love, they say, should make you lighter. What they don’t tell you is that sometimes it becomes a mirror, one that shows you everything you try not to be. And when you see yourself clearly for the first time, you either look away… or you step fully into it.
I stepped in.
This isn’t a story about a moment. It’s about accumulation. About how small choices are repeated often enough to stop feeling like choices at all. About how devotion can quietly turn into possession when you’re afraid of being left behind.
I don’t tell this story because I want forgiveness.
I don’t even tell it because I regret it.
I tell it because this is what happens when love meets someone like me.
And by the time I understood the cost, it was already too late to walk away clean.
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