I kept hoping history would compensate for imbalance

Dear Delyara, I think that was the mistake. I believed history could do too much. That enough years, enough memories, enough old affection, enough “we’ve been through so much” could cover imbalance that had become real in the present. It couldn’t. By the end, I was carrying a friendship more than I was inside one. That’s what hurts most in hindsight — not just that it changed, but how long I kept asking old love to pay the bill for new neglect.