I Knew It Was a Mistake (Midway Through)

Some things don’t explode… they just quietly expire.

We had history.
The kind that makes you feel like you owe it a second try.

When we reconnected, it felt like the universe was giving me a shot I didn’t think I’d get again.
She was the first person I ever thought seriously about.
And I had spent years chasing ghosts, trying to recreate something that never quite clicked with anyone else.
So when she came back…
I jumped.

I don’t think it was love.
Not yet.
But it was something close enough to believe in.
And I wanted to believe. Desperately.

The morning after we decided to give it another try…
the towers came down.
September 11.

And I should’ve seen it. Not as a sign, maybe… but as a shift.
The whole world changed overnight.
And so did we.

There was nowhere to go.
Nothing to distract us.
Just us… trapped in each other’s version of hope.

We told ourselves it was meant to be.
We looked out for each other.
We played house in a world that felt broken.

And I leaned in. Hard.
Maybe too hard.

I was serious this time.
Committed. Present. Intentional.
But underneath all that effort… was something quieter.
Duty.
Not passion.
Not clarity.
Just the Arab in me ... the one that equates seriousness with sacrifice. The one that thinks effort is the same thing as intimacy.

But cracks don’t scream.
They whisper.
And they showed up slowly… not in arguments, but in silence.

We moved to Japan.
And the woman I thought I knew… wasn’t the same there.
And honestly? Neither was I.

I started to realize something I didn’t have the language for back then:
People change when you change their setting.
Some bloom. Some retreat. Some reveal a version of themselves you were never meant to meet.

It took me years to admit I was forcing it.
That I was loving her with my will, not my heart.
Trying to finish a story just because we started it.

By the time I made the decision to return to LA ... to walk away from my PhD, to chase acting, to rewrite my future ...
something in her had already gone quiet.

We had one honest conversation before the end.
She told me she believed her role in my life was to help me see myself. To hear what the universe was trying to tell me.
And I remember thinking:
Maybe she’s right.

The last thing she said to me, face to face, was this:
“Maybe I didn’t love you after all. Maybe we both were just in love with the idea of being together.”

And I stood there…
not shattered.
Just… still.

Because part of me had known that.
From the very beginning.