Page 128 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

Too easy, I must say.

We fell into each other like we remembered the steps to a dance we never really forgot.

The way he walked beside me—slightly ahead, then slowing down just enough so I could catch up. Or the way his hand would brush against mine, not quite holding it, but close enough to make me feel like he could. Or the way he looked at me, like I was still familiar… like I was still his.

We started going out again, but not in a grand, intentional way. Just small things.

Café sit-downs that turned into hours. Sleepovers that felt domesticated. Late-night drives with no destination, just music playing softly in the background while the city blurred past us like something we didn’t need to pay attention to.

Sometimes we’d sit in silence, the kind that didn’t need to be filled with explanations.

And I told myself, ‘God! This is what I wanted!’

This was the version of us I kept replaying in my head after he left.

The easy one.

The soft one.

The one that didn’t hurt.

I started staying over his apartment again—or him over at mine.

At some point, the difference stopped mattering. His presence just folded into my life like it had always belonged there.

We’d wake up late, tangled in sheets that felt warmer than they should have—the kind of warmth that didn’t just come from skin, but from something deeper. Familiarity. Comfort. Something dangerously close to peace.

He still knew me.

That was the part that got me.

The way he remembered how I like my Milo in the morning. The way he’d hand me things without asking, like he already knew I needed them. The way his touch felt—not new, not hesitant—but certain.

My body wasn’t something he had to learn again.

He just knew.

And I let myself melt into that. Into the way everything felt like it picked up exactly where it left off, as though the ending never really happened.

We laughed the same way. Talked the same way. Looked at each other the same way.

There was something unspoken between us that didn’t need to be explained.

And maybe that was the problem.

But I didn’t let myself think about that…

Not yet.

Because this… this was everything I had begged the heavens for.

Every version of him I replayed in my head—softer, kinder, still choosing me—it was all here now.

Real. Within reach.

And I wasn’t about to question it. Not when he looked at me like that. Not when he pulled me closer like there was nowhere else he wanted to be. Not when being with him felt like breathing again.

We didn’t need labels.