The first time I said something just to hurt him, I knew what I was doing.
We were in the kitchen. Late afternoon light streamed through the window, casting a warm glow on the linoleum tiles, the kind that made everything feel slower, softer. Liam was chopping dahon ng sibuyas for sinigang—he'd learned the recipe just for me. The smell of sampalok broth filled the air, tart and familiar, like home. His hands moved with quiet confidence, sleeves rolled up, forearms dusted with tiny flecks of green.
Everything was soft. Everything was good.
And I ruined it.
"You're too nice, you know that?" I said. Not playfully.
He paused mid-chop, knife still in hand. "What does that mean?"
I shrugged, peeling a calamansi with more force than necessary. "It means… you make it too easy. There's no mystery. No fire."
He blinked slowly, the way people do when they're trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Hurt flickered across his face like the shadow of a jeepney driving past—a momentary blur, but unmistakable.
"You'd rather fight than feel safe?" he asked, gently.
I looked at the pot on the stove. It was beginning to boil.
I didn't answer. Not really.
Instead, I stirred the broth and changed the subject.
But something in me had already shifted—something restless, tight, clawing beneath my ribs. Like I needed to prove to myself that this was too good to last.
A few days later, I picked another fight. This time it was about a joke he made in front of my friends at an inuman. He had teased me—just a little—about how competitive I was with Monopoly.
"You made me look stupid," I snapped, once we got home.
He looked at me, baffled. "I was teasing. Like we always do."
"We don't always do anything," I said, sharper than I meant. "You think just because you're kind, you get a pass?"
I could feel it—the part of me stretching the truth just to provoke him. I was throwing emotional grenades, pulling pins out of nowhere, just to watch him flinch.
But he didn't flinch. He just stepped back. Quiet. Calm.
He looked at me like someone watching a fire start and wondering if it's too late to stop it.
And suddenly, I wanted him to shout. To slam the door. To say something mean. Something real. Something ugly.
Because if he did, I could finally say, See? You're not perfect either.
But he didn't.
He just said, "I love you. Even when you make it hard."
And somehow… that made it worse.
It made me feel unworthy. Like he was seeing something broken in me and choosing to stay anyway. Like I couldn't even sabotage this properly.
I started doing what I had done with Daniel—except this time, the stakes were softer, more dangerous. Because Liam wasn't playing games. He wasn't feeding me crumbs or disappearing on weekends.
He was trying.
And I was the one moving the goalposts.
I pulled back when he leaned in.
Made sarcastic comments when he opened up.
Withheld affection just to see if he'd beg.
He didn't beg.
He just… adjusted. Silently.
He stopped texting me first.
Stopped planning our weekends.
He still showed up. Still smiled. Still cooked.
But something in him dimmed.
He started looking at me like he wasn't sure if I still wanted him there.
One morning, I woke up and found he'd left early for work without making coffee. He always made coffee. It wasn't a punishment. It wasn't petty. It was just… different.
I stood in the kitchen holding the empty kettle, wondering if this was what the beginning of the end looked like. Small shifts. Quiet changes.
Like forgetting to water a plant, day by day, until one day it dies and you wonder when it started.
One night, I looked at him across the couch and realized: I'd broken something. Not dramatically. Not explosively. But slowly. With every unfair comment. Every withheld kiss. Every test I forced him to take without telling him he was being tested.
And the worst part?
I wasn't even angry at him.
I was angry at myself—for being given something good and not knowing how to hold it.
At dinner that week, he asked, "Is this what you want? Us?"
The table between us felt longer than it used to. I saw the adobo on our plates, untouched. I stared at the rice and felt like I couldn't taste anything anymore.
"I don't know," I whispered.
He nodded, quietly. "Okay."
No fight. No begging. Just okay.
And that silence said more than a hundred arguments ever could.
I excused myself, locked the bathroom door, and sat on the floor, knees to my chest. I tried to cry but the tears wouldn't come. Just that hollow pressure behind my eyes—the kind that says the damage is already done.
I thought about all the women I knew who'd kill for a Liam. The ones who said, You're so lucky, when I told them about his post-it notes and grocery runs. I thought of my mother, of all the nights she stood in our kitchen alone, never asking for help, never showing emotion.
Maybe I learned love was only real if it hurt.
Maybe safety felt too much like stillness.
Maybe I didn't know how to let someone love me without needing to earn it.
I walked out of the bathroom and saw him setting the table, like nothing had happened.
Like we weren't both waiting for the flame to either go out… or explode.
And that night, as we ate in silence, I realized something terrifying:
Maybe I had become the thing I was afraid of.
The one who starts the fire—
Not because she wants to burn it all down,
But because she doesn't know how to believe it won't leave her cold.