Julian didn't like mornings. He said the light was too honest, too sharp. He preferred dusk, candlelight, rainy afternoons. And that's when I'd see him—usually after ten, always unannounced.
One night he came over with a bottle of wine and a playlist called "For falling apart gently." He kicked off his shoes, lit a stick of incense, and sat on my floor like he belonged there.
I was in sweats and hadn't cleaned the apartment. "I like you like this," he said, his voice low. "Uncurated."
And I melted—because I didn't know yet that being uncurated only mattered when you were someone's choice, not their convenience.
We talked for hours. About the afterlife, about regret, about that one time he ran away to Lisbon for three weeks with a girl he only knew by her middle name. He made pain sound beautiful.
I told him about my childhood. My father. The door. He didn't flinch or pity me. He just said, "That explains your fire."
No one had ever called it that before. My ambition. My armor. My loneliness.
He touched my cheek gently. "You don't have to be so afraid of needing someone."
And then he kissed me—slowly, like a confession.
We didn't sleep together that night. We just lay there, tangled in limbs and breath, while he whispered things I didn't fully understand but desperately wanted to believe.
"You don't need to define what's real for it to matter." "Let's not trap this in expectation."
I nodded, even as my chest tightened. Because deep down, I did want to define it. I wanted to know what we were. I wanted a name.
But when I hinted at it—something as simple as, "So... are we seeing other people?"—he looked at me like I'd just asked him to put out a fire he'd only just lit.
"Don't ruin it by naming it," he said softly. "This—whatever this is—it's rare."
I smiled. Told him I understood. And hated myself for wanting more.
After that night, the rhythm became familiar. He'd disappear for three days. Then return with a poem, a song, a story. He never explained where he went. And I never asked. I just made room for him—always.
I knew his childhood traumas, his artistic insecurities, his biggest fear (being forgotten). But I didn't know what he wanted from me. Only that he kept coming back… and that felt like something.
I started measuring love in word count. In midnight confessions. In "thinking of you" messages sent at 2:14 a.m.
And it made me feel chosen—until the sun came up and I realized I was still alone. No calls. No plans. No labels. Just me, and a man who seemed to love the version of me that only existed after dark.
We met again at that café in Quezon City, the one with the mismatched mugs and the ceiling fans that hummed louder than the music. He showed up late, of course, eyes tired, hair tousled like he'd just left someone else's bed or a long existential crisis.
He kissed me on the cheek, said, "You look like a poem today," and I smiled like I wasn't hurting.
"Where have you been?" I asked.
He leaned back, stretched his arms. "Thinking. Wandering. You know, living."
I wanted to say, You mean living without me? But I didn't. I sipped my coffee, nodded like I wasn't keeping score.
We talked about Camus, about heartbreak as an art form. He said monogamy was colonial. I said I just wanted someone who didn't disappear for three days without texting.
Julian smiled, not unkindly. "You're too grounded for someone so full of dreams."
And maybe that was the problem. I wanted the dream and the grounding. The art and the answer. The freedom and the presence.
He gave me a copy of his zine. Said he'd written something that reminded him of me. I flipped through the pages later, alone on my bed, hands trembling as I read a piece titled: "The Girl Who Waits Without Asking."
It was beautiful. And cruel.
Because I didn't want to be that girl. I wanted to be the one who didn't have to wait at all.
One night, I woke up at 3 a.m. with a panic I couldn't name. My phone screen was blank. No message. No missed call. Just the sharp silence of being no one's emergency.
I sat on the floor by my window and cried like I was seven again. Like I had waited by the door for someone who promised nothing and still disappointed me.
Julian once said that love should be like breath—effortless. But what if I wanted the kind that stayed even when it hurt? What if I wanted the kind that wasn't afraid to be named?
I finally wrote him a message I didn't send: "If you love me, say it while the sun is up."
I never hit send. But I deleted his number the next morning.
Not because I didn't care. But because I finally did.
That weekend, I walked alone through Intramuros, weaving through cobblestone paths and echoes of history. The church bells rang like they were calling for something sacred—like maybe they were calling for me.
I sat in the garden by the fountain, notebook in hand, and for the first time in weeks, I didn't write about him. I wrote about myself.
I wrote about the girl who no longer mistook confusion for passion. The woman who wouldn't wait in the margins for a man who couldn't make her the headline.
I walked home beneath the Manila sunset, orange and defiant. And I wasn't waiting for his message. I wasn't refreshing my screen. I was full—of sorrow, maybe—but also of something steadier.
Peace.
Because even if Julian couldn't stay, I finally had. With myself