i didn't just stay in the middle. that's what makes it hard to explain.

there was already a small world around it — the kind built from shared taste, familiar names, stories, the same references repeating until they start to feel like a place. my friend and I were in that orbit together. we'd talk about it casually, the way people do when they follow something long enough that it starts to blend into routine. it wasn't admiration. it was just a thread running through our days.

so when there was an overlap — brief but real — it didn't feel like a random moment. it was very intentional. it felt like the distance folded for a second. like the screen stopped being a screen. i remember thinking, this is one of those things you don't say out loud too quickly, because if you do, it starts to sound bigger than it is. or you just sound crazy.

but i did tell my friend. not because i needed validation. i needed someone that would understand the nuance. she knew the same world and why it felt strange. and once you share something like that with someone who gets it, it becomes more real. it enters conversation and it becomes a ''remember when.'' it starts living outside of your head.

the thing is, in small worlds, nothing is ever just one thing. there are always secondhand details. context that leaks through. someone mentions something. you hear or see a fragment. not gossip in a malicious way — just information that makes everything feel closer than it should. and that closeness is dangerous because it feels like access, even when it isn't.

for a short while, is stayed in the middle. not inside, not outside. close enough to feel included. distant enough to stay careful. i didn't do anything with it and i didn't try to hold it. i just watched it, quietly, like a moment you don't want to disturb.

then it was gone.

not dramatically or abruptly. well yes, but almost like a correction. the overlap closed the same way it opened — quietly, like it could be erased without anyone noticing. and maybe that's what bothered me the most: how easy it was for it to disappear without a trace, while it stayed loud in my head.

i kept trying to place what i was feeling. obviously it wasn’t heartbreak. and it wasn’t betrayal. it was something more specific: the realisation that proximity is not the same as connection, even when it looks like it from the outside. even when there are mutuals, shared interests, overlapping circles. even when you can name details and talk about them with someone who understands.

maybe that is ditto — how closeness can be built out of fragments. a few moments, a few signs, a few pieces of context, and suddenly you feel involved. you feel seen. and being seen, even briefly, is enough to make you adjust yourself. that’s what i noticed in myself. how quickly i became aware of how i came across. what i shared, what i didn’t. how i softened without realising. not because i was pretending, but because admiration turns quietly into self-surveillance. because when someone you’ve been watching notices you back, your body treats it like proof that you exist in the same world.

and then, when it fades, you’re left with the aftermath: not a loss, exactly, but the echo of believing. the weird silence after something that felt like movement stops moving.

i don’t think any of it was personal. at least, i won't make anything personal out of it. but i don’t think that makes it easier. if it were personal, at least it would be about me. but it wasn’t about me doing something wrong. it was about the fact that these overlaps happen and disappear all the time, and i’m the kind of person who still feels them.

i'm learning the difference now. between being near something and being part of it. between access and intimacy. between a moment that happens and a moment that lasts.

being close is not the same as being chosen. being seen isn't the same as being held. and sometimes the most real thing is the quiet after — when you realise you were still watching the whole time.

i think this is where it ends for me. not because I stopped caring, but because i finally i noticed myself standing there. with the digicam. it sounds even crazier out loud. i was waiting without being asked to wait. filling the silence with meaning that never came back.

the moment was real because i felt it. but it doesn't need to continue to stay real. i don't need to replay it anymore, or keep my eyes open for signs that won't return.

some things don't fade — they just stop asking for your attention.

and when that happens, the kindest thing you can do

is step out of the frame your own. it didn't end badly.

it just didn't continue.