Chapter 1
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STILL HERE
— the third poem
Where Aria & Ethan's voices finally meet
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We’re standing
in the same room,
pretending not to notice
how much space
has learned our names.
It stretches between us—
soft, invisible,
heavy with everything
we didn’t say.
Your fear.
My hurt.
Suspended in the air
like dust in sunlight—
harmless
until you look too closely
and realize
it’s everywhere.
You go quiet.
I go careful.
We move around each other
like this love is already cracked
and one wrong breath
might finish the job.
Your hands hesitate
before they touch me.
Mine stay open,
even though they remember
what it feels like
to reach
and come back empty.
You love me.
I know you do.
I just don’t know
if you love me
enough
to stop whispering your doubts
to the walls
instead of letting them bruise
your way out of your mouth
and into me.
And you—
you see it.
The way I flinch
when your voice drops.
The way I listen
even when I swear
I’m not listening anymore.
You know I heard you.
You just don’t know
how to un-say
something that finally sounded
too much like truth.
So we stand here—
two people gripping the same love
from opposite ends,
both terrified that pulling harder
won’t bring us closer,
but will be the thing
that finally breaks it.
I want to ask you
to choose me again.
You want to ask me
to stay.
Neither of us speaks.
Because love—
real love—
is terrifying
when it’s this fragile.
When it sounds like glass.
Feels like memory.
And still asks to be trusted
with bare hands.
So we pause.
Here.
In this moment
before courage
or collapse.
Still here.
And maybe that’s the beginning.
Or maybe it’s the bravest thing
either of us has ever done—
choosing not to leave
before we learn
how to hold each other
without bleeding.
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Author’s Note 🤍
I didn’t write this to be dramatic.
I wrote it because I’ve lived in this moment.
Because I know what it’s like to love someone deeply
and still feel the space grow between you—
quietly, without warning, without villains.
I think we talk a lot about love ending.
We don’t talk enough about the part
where it almost does.
This poem — all three of them — came from wondering
what happens in that space.
When one person is hurting
and the other is afraid.
When neither of you is wrong,
but both of you are bleeding
in ways you don’t know how to name yet.
Writing both sides wasn’t planned.
It just… happened.
Because love isn’t one voice.
And pain rarely belongs to only one person.
If you’ve ever loved someone through the first crack—
if you’ve ever stayed quiet
because you were scared to make it worse—
if you’ve ever chosen *still here*
over walking away—
this was written for you.
Thank you for reading something this honest.
Thank you for sitting in the pause with me.
And if it hurt a little…
I think that means you understood it.
🤍 Cassie
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