The Seaplane I Never Boarded

There are moments when you realise how easily you would have chosen them.

How little convincing it would have taken.

One message. One missed call. One soft apology whispered through bad reception.

You would have packed your life into a small suitcase and told yourself it was romantic, not reckless.

You would have boarded a plane with your heart beating faster than the engine, rehearsing what you’d say when you saw their face again.

Not the big speech. Just something simple.

I’m here. I tried. I still care.

There is something humiliating about loving like that.

About being ready to go where you were never truly invited.

About hoping someone will hold you just long enough to make leaving hurt less.

You imagine it sometimes.

Them opening the door. The familiar smile. The way your body would remember before your mind could catch up.

The relief of being close again.

The comfort of pretending, for a night or two, that this is what staying looks like.

You would brush your nose against the nape of their neck, inhaling a closeness you know you cannot keep.

They would ask how you’ve been, say they missed you in that careful way people do when they don’t want to promise anything.

You would nod. You would smile.

You would accept crumbs like they were a meal.

And then, quietly, without a scene, you would leave.

Slip back into your life like nothing happened.

Carry the memory alone.

Tell no one how badly you wanted them to ask you to stay.

Because the truth is, you were never asking for forever.

You were asking to be noticed.

To be chosen, even briefly.

To be the one someone reaches for before the silence settles in.

There is a particular ache in knowing you would have gone anywhere for someone who could not meet you halfway.

In realizing that love made you brave, but not enough to change the outcome.

In accepting that sometimes the grand gestures live only in your head, fully formed, never required.

Now you sit with that feeling instead.

The tenderness. The restraint.

The version of yourself who almost boarded that plane.

And maybe that is where the growth lives.

In not going.

In letting the fantasy remain untouched by disappointment.

In learning that wanting someone deeply does not mean abandoning yourself to prove it.

Still, some nights, you wonder.

If they ever felt it too.

If they ever noticed how close you were to choosing them.

And you breathe through it.

The wanting. The letting go.

The quiet understanding that love does not always need to arrive to be real.

Some loves are felt intensely, briefly, and alone.

They leave no trace except the way they teach you what your heart is capable of.