That night, I thought words had finally failed us.
Not because there were none left to say—but because everything that mattered felt too heavy to fit into a message. My phone lay beside me, glowing quietly, as if it already knew what I was afraid to read next.
Then his message came.
Long. Honest. Unprotected.
He didn't argue. He didn't defend himself. He didn't disappear behind excuses. Instead, he stepped forward with open hands and asked the one question that mattered most:
"Tell me what consistency means to you."
I read his words slowly. Every sentence felt like a door opening—some into the past, some into a future I had almost convinced myself not to imagine anymore. He admitted the silence. The missed calls. The moments when I needed him and he wasn't there. He didn't deny my pain. He named it.
And then he said something that made my chest ache in the softest, most dangerous way:
"I want to learn how to make you feel safe, peaceful, and loved."
That word—safe—hit me harder than love ever had.
Because love had always been there. What I was starving for was safety.
As I kept reading, my hands trembled. He talked about looking through our photos, reliving moments I thought only lived inside my heart. He called me the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to him. He said it couldn't be over. That it wasn't a hopeless wish. That his greatest fear was losing me.
I wanted to be strong.
I wanted to protect myself.
I wanted to say, It shouldn't be this hard.
But instead, my eyes filled with tears I didn't realize I'd been holding back for weeks.
So I answered him—not with poetry, not with demands, but with the simplest truth I had:
"I just need consistency. Communication. Even two video calls a week. Seeing your face. Hearing your voice. Texts are not the same when I miss you this much."
I pressed send, unsure if that honesty would push him away or pull him closer.
Seconds later, my phone rang.
Not a text.
Not a pause.
A call.
When his face appeared on the screen, he was crying.
Not quietly. Not politely. He was afraid. Afraid I would leave. Afraid that his love had come too late. Afraid of a life where I was no longer there.
And in that moment—when I should have been the one collapsing—I became the one holding him.
I told him not to cry. I told him I wasn't leaving. Not easily. Not suddenly. Not without trying. I told him that even when my words hurt, my heart never wanted to disappear from his life.
I made a silly joke—one of the ones that only ever worked on him. And just like that, through tears and shaking breaths, he laughed.
That laugh reminded me why I hadn't let go yet.
Because love isn't only about passion or promises. Sometimes love is the moment you almost give up—but choose to stay awake instead. Choose to explain instead of walking away. Choose to believe that someone asking how to love you better is already trying.
That night, words were still not enough.
But they were finally honest.
And for the first time in a long while, I didn't feel alone on my side of the silence.
Chapter Thirteen — When Love Asks for Patience, Not Proof
After that night, everything was quieter—but not empty.
It was the kind of quiet that comes after a storm, when the air is still heavy, but you can finally breathe without bracing yourself. Nothing was magically fixed. There were no grand declarations, no sudden transformations. Just something softer, slower, and far more fragile.
Patience.
I used to think love needed proof to survive.
More messages. More time. More effort. More everything—as if love were a contract constantly at risk of expiring.
But that night changed something in me.
Because for the first time, he didn't ask me to believe blindly. He asked me to walk with him while he learned. And I realized that proof is loud, impatient, and demanding. Patience, on the other hand, is quiet. It sits beside you. It stays even when the outcome is uncertain.
The calls didn't suddenly become perfect. Some days he was exhausted. Some days time slipped through his fingers. But now, when he couldn't show up, he told me. When silence threatened to return, he named it before it swallowed us again.
And that mattered more than flawless consistency.
I stopped counting hours and started listening to intentions. I stopped measuring love by frequency and started feeling it in the effort to understand me. Love, I learned, doesn't always show up exactly how you need it—but sometimes it shows up trying.
There were moments when doubt still crept in. Old fears don't disappear just because someone says the right words once. They wait. They test you. They ask, What if this changes again?
But instead of demanding reassurance, I practiced something unfamiliar: restraint.
I let him grow into the role he was asking for, instead of forcing him to perform it immediately. I let myself rest in the present instead of interrogating the future. And slowly, I understood that patience wasn't me settling—it was me choosing not to abandon something still becoming.
He didn't need to prove his love every day.
And I didn't need to prove my worth by enduring pain silently.
We met in the middle—awkward, imperfect, human.
Love, at that stage, didn't ask for dramatic gestures or constant validation. It asked for space. For gentleness. For time to translate intention into habit.
And most of all, it asked us to stop treating fear as evidence.
Because fear speaks loudly, but it doesn't tell the truth.
That chapter of our love wasn't about certainty. It was about trust without guarantees. About staying not because everything felt safe—but because we believed it could be.
And maybe that's what real love is:
Not the demand to be convinced every day…
But the courage to be patient while love learns how to stay.