I am a good swimmer.

I held onto the rope because it felt like love.

Even when my hands burned, I thought the ache meant it was worth it, that if I just held on long enough, he’d pull me up. I believed in the weight of our memories, in the laughter, in the quiet, in the way his eyes felt like safety for a moment. I thought those things would be enough for him to choose to lift me.

But he didn’t. He believed in that weight too, just in a different way.

Not because I wasn’t worth pulling up, but because he wasn’t ready to hold the weight of something real. Maybe he was scared. Maybe he was tired. Maybe the bridge he was standing on was too crowded for me. Maybe he just didn’t want to. But none of those ‘maybes’ change the fact that he didn’t pull.

And in that moment, I realized something.

Love isn’t proven by who holds on the longest, it’s proven by who reaches back.

I’ve been dangling above the river, not quite with him, not quite without. But maybe letting go isn’t the end of us. Maybe it’s the beginning of me swimming into something sturdier, somewhere I don’t have to ask to be pulled up.

Because I deserve to be met with both hands, not hesitation.

And if someone truly wants me beside them, I won’t have to ask. They’ll throw a rope and pull me up, because they can’t imagine watching me swim by.