That was the question I asked myself while talking with my brother, then with my prima.

I don’t remember how the conversation ended. I don’t remember what happened after. But I remember how you looked at me.

I remember that night's talk with softness and clarity but everything else with vagueness. I remember asking you to talk to me with respect, and you didn’t. I remember asking you to respect certain boundaries, and you didn’t. But I never got to talk to you about what hurt me afterward, because you never seemed comfortable enough with me in person again for that to happen.

And I respected that.

We had both gone through a similar pain, and I wanted to respect your boundary. I care for you so deeply. But as the years went on, I realized it went deeper than respect.

It was fear.

I was afraid of how you would react to my care, to my love. I was afraid you would reject it. That you would hate me.

It was a fear I had with my father. When he would avoid speaking to me, I would want to ignore him back or confront him, but my mother would tell me not to. Just “kiss him on the cheek,” respond gently, ask him about his day, and move along.

So I would do that with you.

Because that is what I knew how to do.

I hadn’t experienced this any other way.

So, of course, when he came along and told me how close you were, when he said he could speak for me to you, I believed him. And when he told me what you thought of me, the things you called me and said, I believed him too, because it hadn’t been the first time someone had said those things.

I even said I understood.

Apparently, that comes from my mother too. A person who seems to have been blamed for everything since she was a child. A person who was held responsible for most things, who tends to feel responsible for things that are not her fault, who blames herself for what men do, and sometimes blames women for the faults of men, because that is what she was brought up with.

Hell, she even gave that gift to me.

So I understood the treatment because, in my mind, I deserved it.

I thought you used me. I thought you didn’t want to deal with me because I was just some crazy, overly attached person.

That was it.

You already acted as if I didn’t exist. My greetings went to the walls instead of you. My warmth met your chill.

Years of someone being there, altering the scene.

There were moments when I thought there might be a chance for us to talk again, and I tried. But then I thought you were going to use me, so I confronted you. Somehow, it became you confronting me about thinking you were being used. And when I tried to explain that I wouldn’t even be able to use you, you said you “didn’t care” to know.

And that was it.

I became unwell. I went away. I came back, and there he was.

Always the better talker. Always there. Always listening. Always dependable. Always trying to make me feel safe.

And after what I had been through that month, I knew I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose him the way I lost you.

I couldn’t make that mistake twice.

You were there in the background because I could feel you there. I could feel you in my gut. That feeling when you know you care for someone, when you know you love someone, and it never goes away.

Is that feeling one-sided?

I feel that way. I know what I feel within my spirit. Within myself. But am I feeling you as well? Can I speak for you?

It would be unfair to do so in so many ways. It is only fair for you to speak for yourself.

And you have been silent on your side.

I mean, that day I gave you an opening to say you didn’t want to be near me or that you didn’t care, you didn’t say it.

And I took note.

But do you?

Do you know what happened?

Do you know what I’m going through right now?

That smooth liar lies, but every once in a while, he can be sincere. He says you do. And if so…

Do you know what it is like to live in this body? To settle into this fucking reality? To fight and struggle with telling yourself it isn’t your fault, because you know it isn’t, but to still hear your mind tell you it is, because you’ve always been told it’s your fucking fault?

Maybe you think it’s my fault too.

Maybe that’s why you don’t talk to me.

And if so, maybe it’s best you stay away.

Actually, I don’t know what you think. I don’t know what you feel. I don’t know anything.

That’s what causes the ache. I make my own assumptions, and it gets unhealthy.

And I can’t keep aching over a feeling in my gut that might only belong to me.

Not right now.

Right now, I have to make myself whole again.

Because some piece of shit thought he could take what he wanted from me, and then tried to degrade me by reminding me of his traumas and that night, as if that would soften what he did.

Only it didn’t soften anything.

It reminded me of what happened.

And I fucking softened it for him.

I softened it because I was so messed up. I couldn’t admit it to myself, even after hearing myself repeat what happened to me. Even after hearing him repeat what he said.

That it was what it was.

I told him, “It was just the words.”

Just the words, while my body was literally screaming.

While my face was in flames.

While my brain was giving every sincere effort to forget, like it had before.

That was what I was trying to forget.

That was what I was trying to “fix” and “heal” and “control.”

That damn memory.

“Perdonar y olvidar,” like he says.

Only I couldn’t.

I couldn’t forgive and forget him.

I love you.

But you are still not here.

So that must mean what I feel is only here.

In me.

Alone.

I only have my brothers, my friends, and myself.

I love you. Purely. Genuinely. That is real. That feeling is tangible and real.

But anything you feel for me, until proven otherwise, is imagined.

I walked into that apartment thinking of how, one day, it would be great to hang out with you there again. Seeing a movie. Talking about anything. Just being. Maybe all of us could be there some day. He even talked about us going camping someday. All of us. So I walked in. Into a threat. Thinking:

Not sick.

Not scared.

And I did it scared. Afraid. Sick. Alone with him before our outing, telling myself it was just “exposure therapy,” all part of this grand “healing” of the “house.”

And I wrack my brain knowing that I put myself, my body, and my peace in danger for that love. For the idea of all of us being in the same room together someday.

In peace.

Because I genuinely thought I could heal all of this.

But I can’t.

It’s about me.

It has always been about me.

No matter how much I try not to make it.

I can’t heal this house.

Not my brothers.

Not the people who hurt me.

No matter how much I love them.

No matter how much I hate them.

I have to stop trying.