The Voice I Saved for After You

My phone starts playing a recording of me begging myself not to go back.

It is dated the night before I left Ellis.

Then my own voice says

“If I miss them someday, please remember what staying did to me.”

Past me goes quiet for six seconds.

Then I hear our old kitchen in the background.

Ellis asks,

“What do you want?”

My old voice answers,

“Whatever makes this easier.”

Ellis goes quiet.

“You used to know what you wanted.”

I stop the recording.

Because I remember this part now

I had become so good at keeping the peace that nobody noticed I was disappearing inside it.

Not even me.

Ellis loved me.

But somewhere along the way,

being loved started costing me every honest answer.

I press play again.

Past me is crying now.

“Ellis did not ask me to become smaller.”

“I just kept shrinking because I was terrified that the real me might be harder to keep.”

Then my old voice says something I have no memory of recording.

“Tomorrow, I am not leaving because of what Ellis did.”

“I am leaving because of what I was about to do to myself just to stay.”

Past me takes one shaky breath.

“If you are hearing this, you probably miss Ellis.”

I close my eyes.

“You will remember the good parts first.”

“That is what time does.”

“It keeps the warmth and quietly removes the price.”

My hand freezes over the screen.

“So before you call missing them love, remember who you had to become to stay.”

The old silence between us suddenly feels different.

I was not only losing Ellis when I left.

I was trying to stop losing myself.

Then Past Me says the part I never expected.

“Ellis was not the person I was begging you not to go back to.”

My chest tightens.

“I was.”

“The version of me who kept trading honesty for the relief of being kept.”

The recording ends.

For years, I called the ache regret.

Now I finally recognize it.

It was grief for the person I abandoned long before I abandoned Ellis.

I thought I missed Ellis.

I had simply forgotten how much of myself it cost to stay.