The Hands That Took, Not Knowing

 He never meant to be loved like that.

He had never been taught what to do with a love that didn’t hurt first.

He grew up watching his father come home late, eyes glazed over with guilt he never confessed. His mother met that silence with shouting, sharp and relentless, until the house became a battleground of withheld affection and unanswered questions. Love, in his world, was a game of avoidance and explosion. You either disappeared or you detonated.

So when she came—quiet, consistent—he didn’t know where to place her. She wasn’t chasing him. She wasn’t fleeing either. She just stayed. That unsettled him more than chaos ever did.

He liked having her around. But he didn’t understand that liking was not enough.

When she overflowed, he didn’t notice. He only saw the result—his life a little easier, the air a little kinder. And when she needed space to catch her breath, he mistook it for withdrawal. So he let her go. Until she returned again. And again. And again.

There was comfort in that rhythm. Not love, perhaps. But something close enough that he never questioned it.

What he failed to realize was that every return cost her something.

He started noticing the silences first. Her eyes looked a little farther away each time, like she was already somewhere he couldn’t reach. Her laughter took longer to arrive. Her hands shook a little more when they touched him.

The last time she left, he waited. And waited.

Days passed. Weeks. He told himself she was busy. Healing. Probably mad, but she'd get over it. She always did.

But her love never returned this time. Not even to say goodbye.

He went looking, not out of urgency, but out of a dull ache he couldn’t place. It was only then he saw it: the trail of stitches she had sewn to keep herself intact. He remembered each moment she had bled, and how he had offered no gauze, no balm, only more reason to bleed.

He found a note on her table once. Not addressed to him, not meant to be found.

“My love has come home to me. I’m learning how to keep it here.”

He reread it five times, then folded it carefully like it was something sacred. Like he could finally see what had always been in front of him.

He never meant to be loved like that. But he was. And that might have been the greatest tragedy.

(This story is written as a companion to “What Remains After Overflow.” It offers a glimpse into the other side—the perspective of the one who was loved, and who did not know what to do with that love.)