Still The Sweetest Blueberry by M.A. Canlas at Inkitt

Story Notes

Berry is real. She is me. This is my story - lived, felt, and carried by me - and the pain in these pages is the truth, as completely and honestly as I could bring myself to tell it. There is no fiction here, no dramatization, no details added for effect. Nothing more and nothing less than exactly what happened.

Writing this was one of the hardest things I have ever done. There were many tears. There were moments I had to stop because the weight of it became too heavy to carry all at once. But I kept coming back to it, because some things are too important to leave unspoken.

What makes this piece what it is, is not the words on the page. It is her. The realness of who she was, what she felt, what she gave, and what was taken from her. I only spoke of it. She lived every word.

I am sharing this because I need you to see what loving a person, without ever truly being met halfway, can do to someone. Not as a warning to be afraid of love - but as a reminder of what you deserve from it. You are beyond valuable. You deserve to be respected, understood, cared for, and loved truly - not in promises, not in apologies, but in action, consistently, without you ever having to beg for it.

Please, let Berry’s story be the lesson you never have to live through yourself.

Read this gently. And hold your heart closely.

Summary

Not all damage looks like damage at first. Sometimes it arrives wrapped in apologies and promises, in moments that feel like love even as they slowly take something from you. Some forms of love do not shatter you in one moment - they are patient, arriving in the spaces between apologies, in the gap between a promise made and a promise broken, in the quiet erosion of a person who loved without condition and asked for so little in return. They wear you down in ways you almost don't notice, until the light inside you has been dimming for so long you forgot it was ever bright, and there is nothing left of it to carry. This is that kind of story. Her name was Berry.

Genre: Drama

Author: M.A. Canlas

Status: Complete

Chapters: 10

Rating: n/a

Age Rating: 16+

A Note Before You Begin

A Note Before You Begin.

Consider this a gentle warning: the pages ahead do not hold clean closures or easy heals. They hold the sharp, suffocating weight of loving someone through a slow fading. If you are currently drowning in a love that hurts more than it heals, please hold your heart closely while you read this. You are not alone in the dark.

Before you go any further, there are two things you should know.

The first: I will not be sharing the real name of the person this story is about. Not out of protection for them - but because a name is too small a thing to carry the weight of what they did. I have given them a nickname instead. I call them Buggy. That is all they will ever be in these pages.

The second: my name in this story is Berry. That nickname was given to me by Buggy because I loved berries more than most people love anything, he has a liking for the taste of blueberries, and I usually smelt like blueberries to him. It is one of the few things he gave me that did not eventually break. I have chosen to keep it - to carry it the way you carry something small and significant, something that once meant the world and still does, even after everything.

This story is both something I need to tell and something I am telling for Berry. It is both confession and witness. It is both mine and hers.

I want you to feel this. Not just understand it - feel it. The way she felt it. Every single day.

I loved you before and after I was given permission to see and understand your soul.

I’ve always seen you.

I’ve always accepted you for exactly who you are.

So please, look at me now. I’m still the sweetest blueberry you’ve picked, right?