When the drink starts to taste like…

The first sip was always sweet. 

Like laughter shared over late-night conversations, like the warmth in his voice when he called my name. It was in how he’d pull me closer in group photos, in the way he rested his head on my shoulder during rides home from campus—in how his fingers would wander to my hair, tousling it randomly, absentmindedly. The little nickname he gave me, one that no one else called me. It tasted like stolen moments that I thought meant something—promising the possibility of an ‘us’ waiting just around the corner.

I remember the nights we spent on the rooftop, watching the city lights flicker like fireflies, talking about dreams and futures. He’d joke about running away together, just the two of us, living by the sea where no one could tell us who to be. And I believed him. I believed every word, every lingering glance, every touch that hinted at something more. One night, when the laughter settled into silence, I said it—I love you. He smiled, but the words never found their way back. Still, I told myself it was okay, that maybe he just needed time. That maybe, one day, he’d say it too.

But heartbreak doesn’t announce itself. 

It doesn’t knock on the door or send a warning before barging into your chest with an unbearable ache. It arrives quietly, in the moments between words unsaid, in the pauses that last too long, in the way his laughter stops feeling like home.

I knew it long before I admitted it to myself. Maybe it was the way his eyes never searched for me in a crowded room, or how he could talk about her with a fondness he never had when he spoke about me. Maybe it was the weight of all the times I was almost something—almost chosen, almost enough. I sat with the truth long before I was ready to face it, and when I finally did, it felt like drinking something bitter, something that used to be sweet but had turned against me.

But I should’ve known.

The sweetness never lasts.

The second sip was bitter. It reminded me of the way he spoke about her, the softness in his voice when he mentioned her name. How he’d rush to reply when she texted, even as my messages sat unread for hours. It was in the way he asked me for advice about what to say to her, the way he borrowed my words to woo someone else. I wanted to believe I was special, that maybe—just maybe—he saw me the way I saw him. But the truth has a way of seeping in—slow, unforgiving—like the aftertaste of something once delightful but now insufferable.

Then the drink started to burn.

It burned when I realized he liked me—just not enough. Not enough to choose me, not enough to take the risk. He’d call me when he was lonely, lean on me when he was lost, but when it came to love, I was never the answer. 

I was the comfort, the safety, the almost. 

I was everything—everything but the one thing that mattered.

I let myself believe I was special. And maybe I was—to a degree. But only in the way a lighthouse is special to a sailor. A guide, a constant, a presence. But never the shore.

It stung when he told me about their first date, how nervous he was, how perfect it felt. I smiled and nodded, swallowed the lump in my throat, and told him I was happy for him. I was so good at pretending that he never even noticed.

I wonder if he even knows what he did. How he made me feel helpless as I was standing at the edge of something real, only to step back before I could fall. How he made me believe, just enough, to break me.

Maybe that was my mistake.

Maybe I should’ve let the bitterness show. Maybe I should’ve let the hurt slip through the cracks instead of swallowing it down like another sip of something I no longer enjoyed. Maybe then, he would’ve seen me—not as his safety net, not as his ‘almost’—but as someone who deserved more than just the aftertaste of something once sweet.

The last sip was unbearable.

Because when the drink starts to taste like regret, like loneliness, like a love never returned—

When the drink starts to taste like heartbreak, you know it’s time to walk away.

Now, the glass is empty. 

And I don’t think I’ll be ordering another.