The city hummed outside my window, a constant, low-grade fever of traffic and distant construction. But in my tiny apartment, the only sound was the meticulous scrape of a knife against cardboard. Leo, his brow furrowed in concentration, was dividing a store-bought Swiss Roll into two perfectly equal pieces. The chocolate sponge was impossibly light, the cream filling pristine. He placed the larger half, I noticed, on a paper towel and nudged it toward me.
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“You skipped breakfast again,” he said, not as an accusation, but with a gentle, weary concern that was uniquely his. “I could tell by the way you were squinting at your screen. Your blood sugar gets low.”
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I hadn’t. I’d eaten a piece of toast. But Leo’s worry was a force of nature, a tide that gently, insistently, reshaped the facts of my life to fit its own narrative of caretaking. He was, without a doubt, the sweetest guy I had ever met. His sweetness wasn’t cloying or performative; it was innate, woven into his DNA like the pattern on a bird’s egg. It was in the way he always carried an extra umbrella, just in case. The way he remembered my preferred order at every coffee shop we frequented. The way he’d notice a faint cough and show up the next day with a care package of lemon ginger tea and honey.
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“Thanks, Leo,” I said, taking a bite. It was delicious. He beamed, a smile that transformed his pleasantly ordinary face into something radiant. His happiness was directly proportional to my perceived well-being.
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This was our rhythm. We’d met in a university library two years ago, him nervously asking if the chair beside me was free, though the cavernous room was empty. Our friendship was built on a foundation of his gentle fussing and my grateful acceptance. He was my human security blanket, my personal safety inspector, my guardian against a world he seemed to believe was perpetually on the verge of causing me harm.
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Waiting for the metro together was a prime example of his vocation in action. He’d position himself as a human shield between me and the platform edge, his body tense until the train had squealed to a complete stop.
“Always stand behind the yellow line, Maya,” he’d murmur, his hand a ghost near my elbow, ready to pull me back from a danger that only he could vividly apprehend. “And not directly opposite the doors. Stand by the wall, see? Less crowd turbulence when they open.”
He’d then launch into a story he’d read about crowd crushes in other countries, his voice a low, serious hum. I’d nod, half-listening, feeling a confusing mix of immense fondness and a faint, claustrophobic itch.
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His concerns weren’t limited to the immediate and physical. They extended into the vast, nebulous territory of my future, and specifically, my romantic life. He was endlessly, almost poetically, worried about me losing my virginity to the wrong guy.
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We’d be watching a movie, and a careless, frat-boy type would appear on screen. Leo would shake his head. “A guy like that… he wouldn’t treasure it. He’d treat it like a trophy, not a… a moment.” He’d stumble over the words, his ears turning pink.
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Another time, after I’d had a disastrous date with a slick finance bro named Julian, Leo had listened to my rant with a solemn expression. When I finished, he said, softly, “He would have been careless with you, Maya. He would have talked about it to his friends. You deserve… you deserve a sunrise. Not a cheap firework.”
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The poetry of it was never lost on me. His care was so exquisite, so finely tuned. He saw my heart, my body, my future, as a priceless, fragile artifact in a poorly guarded museum. He was the ever-vigilant night watchman, scanning the shadows for potential thieves and vandals.
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The problem, the immense, guilt-inducing problem, was that I had no romantic feelings for him whatsoever.
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I loved him. Deeply. He was my best friend. The thought of him not being in my life caused a panicky, hollow feeling in my chest. But the idea of kissing him, of his carefully curated concern translating into physical intimacy, felt… wrong. It felt like kissing a brother. Or a doctor. The part of my brain that should have sparked with attraction at his kindness only generated a warm, platonic glow. He was my Swiss Roll—sweet, comforting, predictable, and ultimately, just a friend.
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I tried to force it. Once, after a particularly tender gesture where he’d walked forty minutes in the rain to bring me cold medicine, I looked at his concerned, dripping-wet face and thought, Now. Feel it now. I searched my feelings for a flicker of desire, a heartbeat of passion. I found only a profound and grateful affection that sat stubbornly in the realm of the familial.
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He never made a move. His love language was preventative maintenance, not declaration. He showed his devotion by ensuring I ate, that I was safe from traffic and crowds, and that my heart remained unbroken by keeping all potential suitors at a wary distance with his silent, disapproving presence. He was saving me, I realized, for himself. But he was waiting for a sign from me that I was ready to be collected, like a perfectly preserved specimen.
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The tension of it began to wear on me. His sweetness started to feel like a weight. His worries became a cage whose bars were made of my own guilt. How could I not love this wonderful, thoughtful man who was dedicating his life to my well-being? What was wrong with me?
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The crisis point arrived, as they often do, in a mundane setting. We were at a crowded weekend street market, surrounded by the sizzle of takoyaki and the cheerful chaos of shoppers. Leo was in his element, his hand lightly on my back guiding me through the throng, his head on a swivel, identifying potential hazards—a child with an ice cream cone running wild, a wobbly stack of crates, a particularly deep crack in the pavement.
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“Stay close,” he said, his voice tense with the responsibility of navigating me through this gauntlet of peril.
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And I did. I always did. But then I saw him. A man, maybe a few years older than us, selling handmade leather journals at a stall. He had a quiet confidence, a slight smile as he talked to a customer, and hands that were strong and stained with ink. Our eyes met for a second—just a fleeting, casual glance—and I felt it. A jolt. A simple, uncomplicated spark of attraction. It was so startling, so foreign after the complex emotional soup of my relationship with Leo, that I actually stopped walking.
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Leo followed my gaze. His entire body stiffened. I felt the hand on my back tighten almost imperceptibly. The warmth drained from his face.
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“What is it?” he asked, his voice tight.
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“Nothing,” I said too quickly, feeling like a traitor. “Those journals are nice.”
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We walked on in silence for a few minutes, the cheerful noise of the market suddenly feeling oppressive.
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“He seemed… older,” Leo finally said, his voice carefully neutral.
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“I suppose.”
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“Probably has a very… complicated life. Artists usually do. Unstable.”
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The analysis was immediate. The threat assessment had begun. The sweet concern was curdling into something else—something possessive and fearful.
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“Leo, I just liked his journals,” I said, a defensive edge in my voice I hadn’t intended.
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“Of course,” he said, but the worry in his eyes had a new, sharp quality to it. The genie was out of the bottle. He had seen me look at another man, and for the first time, his worry wasn’t abstract. It had a face, and ink-stained hands.
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We didn’t speak much for the rest of the day. The unspoken thing between us had grown teeth. That night, as we sat on my sofa, the silence was thick and uncomfortable. He was staring at his hands, his usually open face closed off.
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“Maya,” he began, and his voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper. “I just… I need to know you’ll be careful.”
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“I’m always careful, Leo.”
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“No, I mean… with… men.” He couldn’t even say it. “I know you’ll… eventually… you know. And I just…” He looked up, and his eyes were full of a naked, terrifying fear. “I just don’t want it to be someone who doesn’t understand what it means. What you mean. I don’t want it to be some… random person who will just use it and leave you feeling empty. It should be… it should be with someone who… who…”
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He couldn’t finish. He didn’t have to. It should be with me.
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The weight of it all came crashing down. His years of sweet, smothering worry. My years of grateful, guilty compliance. He had built a cathedral of care around me, and now he was waiting for me to sanctify it with a feeling I simply did not possess. To him, I was the princess in the tower, and he was the dedicated knight. My role was to eventually lower my hair and let him in. He had never considered that I might want to leave the tower altogether, or that another knight, one who didn’t see me as quite so fragile, might catch my eye.
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I looked at him—my sweet, dear, anxious friend—and I knew with a devastating clarity that I was about to break his heart. And in doing so, I was going to shatter the beautiful, suffocating world he had built for us.
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“Leo,” I said, my voice trembling. “Look at me.”
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He did. His eyes were wide and scared, like a child’s.
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“You are the kindest, most thoughtful person I have ever known,” I said, each word feeling like a shard of glass in my throat. “You have taken care of me in ways no one else ever has. Or probably ever will.”
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A flicker of hope ignited in his eyes. It was cruelest thing I had ever seen.
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“And I love you for it. I love you so much.” I took a ragged breath. “But I am not in love with you. I have never been in love with you. And I don’t think I ever will be.”
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The hope didn’t just die; it was annihilated. The light in his eyes didn’t fade—it was extinguished, utterly and completely. He stared at me, and for a long, horrible moment, there was nothing in his expression at all. Just a blank, white shock.
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Then, the sweetness returned. But it was a broken, horrible sweetness. He nodded slowly, a gentleman even in his utter devastation.
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“I see,” he whispered. He stood up, his movements stiff and robotic. “I… I should go.”
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“Leo, please. Let’s talk about this.”
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He shook his head, unable to look at me. “There’s nothing to talk about, is there? You’ve been very clear.” He walked to the door, his shoulders slumped. He paused with his hand on the knob. He didn’t turn around.
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“Please,” he said, his voice cracking on the word. It was his old mantra, but twisted into something new and heartbreaking. “Please just… make sure you eat a proper breakfast tomorrow. And… be careful. Always be careful.”
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And then he was gone. The door clicked shut with a soft, final sound.
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I sat there in the profound silence he left behind, a silence that was no longer comforting but utterly desolate. I had done it. I had freed myself from the gentle prison of his affection. The guilt was immense, a physical pain in my chest. But underneath it, like a tiny, tough green shoot pushing through concrete, was another feeling: relief.
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The world outside was dangerous and unpredictable. It was full of platform edges and careless men and skipped meals. But it was also full of possibilities. And for the first time, I was alone in it. Truly alone. Without my watchman. The thought was terrifying. And it was, undeniably, my own.
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and then Add to home screen.