There were always two versions of him.
One moved through the world with practiced grace — steady hands, soft eyes, always saying just enough. The other lived behind the silence, counting every word, measuring every glance, watching the invisible lines that connected people like threads on a map.
He had mastered the art of almost.
Almost honest.
Almost clear.
Almost cruel.
But never quite.
It wasn't deception, not exactly. Just… omission with purpose. The kind of withholding that felt necessary, like pausing before a confession you never intend to make.
People liked him that way. Steady. Considerate. Easy to trust.
No one ever noticed the weight behind his quiet.
There were names he didn't say out loud.
Conversations replayed, revised, rewritten only in his head.
Promises that weren't broken — just never made in the first place.
Sometimes, late at night, he'd catch himself staring at a blank screen, a message half-typed, heart beating like it was hiding something. He told himself it was just timing. That some truths weren't ready yet. That clarity could wait.
But clarity, he knew, was dangerous.
It unraveled things.
Revealed too much.
Demanded too much.
So he stayed in the space between — not because he was lost, but because he had built something there. A fragile balance. Not perfect. Not clean. But his.
And he was willing to do whatever it took to keep it from falling apart.
Even if that meant holding too tightly.
Even if that meant someone, someday, would finally ask the one question he couldn't afford to answer