10:38 PM — Early December
Winter's close.
You can feel it in the air now.
He's leaving soon. My boyfriend.
Vacation with his family. Ski resort somewhere north.We won't see each other again until spring semester starts.
That's months.
I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that.
Part of me says it's normal. Healthy even.People have lives outside of each other.
Another part of me spirals.
What if he meets someone there?What if there's some other guy at the resort — confident, effortless, new?What if distance makes it easier to detach?
The thoughts came fast. Ugly.
And then I caught myself.
That's the same fear that's been eating him alive, isn't it?
Her boyfriend.
The constant anxiety that she's slipping further away.
That fear doesn't protect love.
It suffocates it.
I don't want to become that.
I can't control what happens on a ski slope three hours away.
All I can control is how I show up right now.
Still… it's harder than I expected.
I talked to him the other day.
Her boyfriend.
First real conversation we've had alone in a while.
He reached out.
That surprised me.
For months, it's mostly been me and her talking.I didn't realize how much she'd been carrying — being his only support system.
Maybe that's why he called.
He led the conversation.
I let him.
Didn't push. Didn't analyze.
And then he said something I didn't expect.
He said he finally understands how much she was carrying on her own.
How unfair it was to lean on her for everything.
How that kind of imbalance kills attraction.
How it exhausts someone.
He said it without defensiveness.
Just… recognition.
It took him long enough.
But he's starting to see it.
He also mentioned therapy.
Casually.
Like it wasn't a big deal.
Said he's beginning to understand how his anxious attachment hurt her more than he realized.
That it wasn't just fear — it was pressure.
That part slipped out.
And then he hesitated.
I could feel it through the phone.
I'm a teenager.
He's an adult.
Should he be telling me this?
Should I be hearing this?
There was a second where I wondered if I was overstepping just by listening.
But he didn't spiral.
He didn't ask for reassurance.
He didn't ask me to fix anything.
He just… admitted it.
That felt different.
Healthier.
I don't know if it's enough yet.
I don't know if she'll see it.
But for the first time, I thought —
Maybe he really is changing.
And maybe growth doesn't look dramatic.
Maybe it looks like therapy appointments and uncomfortable realizations.
Snow's coming.
Distance is coming.
For all of us.
I guess this is where trust gets tested.
By space.