I almost asked for comfort and then didn’t

Dear Delyara, I got very close. The sentence was there. The need was there. The opening was even there. And still, I didn’t ask. Not because I’m trying to be distant. Because some older part of me still believes that asking for comfort is riskier than quietly going without it. There’s something in me that wants tenderness deeply and mistrusts the asking for it in the same breath. So I let the moment pass. And afterward I felt that familiar double ache: the original need, and the loneliness of not having voiced it. That combination is exhausting.