Dear Lion,
Tonight, I almost called her.
It’s funny how loneliness changes shape at night.
By day, it’s just a background hum. But after midnight, it grows teeth.
I sat on the edge of my bed, phone in hand, scrolling old messages—her laughter frozen in tiny blue bubbles, pictures from when everything felt possible, a playlist we made for nights like this.
My apartment was silent except for the tick of the clock and the low, steady ache in my chest.
Some part of me still hopes she’ll reach out first, break the silence, say she regrets letting me go.
But the truth is, there are no easy endings. Most nights, we make our peace with absence.
I stared at her name, thumb trembling.
What would I even say? “I miss you” sounds too simple. “I’m sorry” comes too late.
I wanted to tell her about the things I’ve learned—about the ways men keep pain hidden, how regret is heavier in the dark, how I understand now that love is more about letting go than holding on.
For a moment, I imagined her picking up.
We’d talk like nothing ever broke, like the hurt never happened.
But memories are dangerous—they edit out the reasons you left, soften the edges of truth.
I thought about the last time we spoke,
how her voice sounded tired, the way we both tiptoed around the things we didn’t dare say.
The distance between us was measured in all the apologies we never gave, all the feelings we never put into words.
The hardest part isn’t the silence between us.
It’s the questions that echo after midnight:
Would it have been different if I’d fought harder?
Did she ever look at her phone, hoping to see my name?
Tonight, I put the phone down.
I realized some doors close for a reason—not to punish us, but to push us forward.
We don’t heal by reopening old wounds, but by learning to live with the scars.
Here’s what I know now:
Men rarely admit how much we want to reach back, even when we know we shouldn’t.
We replay old conversations, imagine rewriting history, wish for a sign that says “try again.”
But sometimes, courage is found in restraint, and growth is measured by the silence we keep.
Tonight, I almost called her.
Instead, I forgave myself for missing her.
I let the ache settle, let the past be what it is—a lesson, not a map.
Maybe that’s what it means to be a man after dark:
To face the memories that haunt us, to hold our regrets gently,
and, when the moment comes, to choose peace over longing.
—Lion