the cost of staying

there's a particular kind of pain that comes from staying too long. not the sharp pain of a clean break, but the slow erosion of knowing you've already decided to leave and choosing to pretend you haven't.

you can feel it in your body. the way you flinch when they touch you. the silence that feels like resentment instead of comfort. the conversations you're no longer having because you already know how they'll go. you're not fighting anymore, you're just present.

the thing about staying is that it costs the other person too. they sense the distance and try harder to close it, not realizing the distance is the point. you're protecting them from knowledge they already suspect. but that protection is its own kind of cruelty because it delays the inevitable while making both of you smaller.

i've done this. stayed in situations long after the decision was made. the fear of the rupture kept me there, performing commitment while internally i'd already left. what i didn't understand then was that the performance was the cruelest part. it wasn't kindness. it was cowardice.

if you're already gone, the only honest thing left is to go.