One night, under soft lights and laughter, we drifted into a night meant for celebration. Joy danced on the air like whispers, but my heart? It was a quiet observer, watching him orbit a sun that wasn’t me. She, with her grace like morning dew, always caught his gaze, his heart tilting toward her like a sunflower to light. She’s gentle, someone who ignites his light in ways I no longer do.

I saw it all—how his world brightens in her presence, how her laughter becomes the song to which his soul sways. And when the time came to choose, to lift one soul above the rest, I caught a glimpse of the truth on paper. Her name, etched with the ink of his longing, not mine. A sigh escaped me, soft and resigned, as if the wind itself carried away what little hope remained.

And though the urge to speak, to shout my knowing, fluttered in my throat, I swallowed it down. What would it matter? Words exchanged would only rise like storms, tearing through fragile peace. His voice would thunder, his accusations rain down, and I would be left standing in the wreckage once more.

Yet she, this woman who holds his gaze, loves another. Her heart, wrapped in a bond she shares with someone far removed from the tangled web of our lives. She is kind, unknowing of the fire she sparks in him, and I? I admire her in quiet surrender. For it is not her fault that she has become his lighthouse, nor mine that I’ve become a ship lost in another current.

We are actors now, performing this careful dance before an audience who sees only the surface. Smiles painted on like fragile masks, while the threadbare truth holds us together by a single, trembling string. But I no longer chase his affection, nor seek the warmth of his once familiar flame. Instead, I wrap myself in the simple joys of life that keep me steady in this storm.

And when his words, sharp as shards of glass, are thrown in my direction — cutting, cruel — I no longer bleed. For you see, the wounds he’s left are scars now, numb and unmoved by the same old pain. Let him gaze where he will, let him long for what cannot be. My heart has already drifted far from this tempest, to a place where silence is a balm, and the waves are kinder.