Not Love, But Something Like It.."The Anatomy of a Trauma Bond” (Part 1)
He’d been messaging me for months. Always flirting. Always poking. Just enough charm to make me roll my eyes, just enough persistence to keep me curious.
And I kept saying no.
Because I knew. Even then…before the first kiss, before the chaos. I knew that if I opened that door, it wouldn’t just be for one night. It would be for something messier.
Louder. Maybe even more complicated than I wanted to admit.
But I caved.
I’d just gotten home from a date that left me feeling… nothing.
Not hurt, not disappointed, just empty.
The kind of quiet that makes you wonder if you’re even capable of wanting someone anymore.
I’d spent the last 18 months away from dating, trying to find myself again.
Trying to heal whatever part of me kept choosing the wrong ones.
But that night made me feel like maybe I was still broken.
Like maybe connection wasn’t in the cards for me.
And as I walked in my front door,
he messaged me.
Timing.
Always him and his fucking timing. He had asked me out every weekend for the last two months, and finally I’d said, “If you make a plan, I’ll go.” I didn’t think he’d actually follow through.
But that weekend, he showed up. I heard the truck before I saw it.. that deep, rumbling engine every small-town girl knows too well. The kind that turns heads. The kind that raises red flags.
Most of us would call it hot.
Most would call it trouble.
And they’d be right.
But for me, it wasn’t just noise.
It was a signal.
It was a threat.
It was him.
From the second I sat beside him, I knew I was fucked.
Not just because I wanted him physically, though that was obvious.
But because something in me recognized him.
Like déjà vu.
Like a warning I wanted to ignore.
Like a familiar pain I hadn’t fully lived through yet.
We went out with his friends, but the night really happened after. He kissed me like he didn’t believe in second chances.
No hesitation. No slow build. Just heat and certainty, like he’d been waiting for that moment longer than he’d admit.
It caught me off guard, how bold it was. But later, in the quiet, he told me I made him nervous. Said I threw him off, said he didn’t usually feel that way. And suddenly, the way he kissed me made sense. Like he needed to prove he wasn’t afraid, even though he absolutely was.
Later, at my place, I tried to act like I had control. Gave him the tour. Pretended I was casual. But when I turned to leave the room, he pulled me back. Kissed me again and this time, I didn’t even pretend to fight it.
No one warns you that sometimes, the most intimate part comes after. Once the rush faded, we stayed up talking. For hours.
He told me everything.
Every fucked-up thing he’d done.
The girls he cheated on. The lies he told.
The chaos he caused just to feel something.
It wasn’t a confession.
It was a test.
Like he was daring me to flinch.
Daring me to get up and walk away.
But I didn’t. I just sat there, steady.
And I think that scared him more than anything.
I don’t know why I didn’t walk away.
Maybe because I’ve worn that armor too.
Maybe because I had been both the wound and the knife.
When you recognize your own damage in another person, it’s hard to walk away. So I stayed. Not to save him.
Just to remind him that someone still could look and not run.
I was the person for him that I wish someone else would be for me.
Not because I thought he was a good man.
He wasn’t.
But there was something in him that felt familiar, and that was enough to make me stay.
He was reckless, inconsistent, tangled in his own messes. But I saw through it. I always do. Not the version he performed for the world but the boy underneath it all. The one still flinching from wounds no one ever helped him heal. The one who hurt people just to feel in control.
We weren’t in love. Not even close.
We were just two people, lost in each other...
Looking for something in the pain that we didn’t know how to name.
It was nights that felt like everything,
and mornings that felt like nothing.
We were connected but always confused
And that was the problem,
we kept reaching for each other in the dark,
hoping it would feel like light.
I didn’t realize it then,
but that night was the beginning.
Not of a love story ..
but of a trauma bond.
We would hurt eachother on purpose and go no contact. But a quick message would always reopen that door.
There were nights I ran back to him.
Messy, heartbroken, unraveling over someone else.
And he asked why. Wanted to understand what finally cracked the girl he swore was unbreakable. Then he wrapped himself around me. Not with promises. Just presence. Like someone who knew how to hold pain, but never how to stay through it.
I think that’s the real lesson:
Sometimes the people who hold you the closest
aren’t meant to keep you.
Sometimes they’re just the mirror…
the spark that reminds you what it feels like to be seen,
even if it’s only for a moment.
He was never mine.
But for a while,
he reminded me I was still worth wanting. That truly woke something up in me.
No.. he didn’t make me feel safe but when I was with him, I felt alive.
And that was enough.
Still, every now and then,
when a diesel engine rumbles down the street,
I catch myself looking up.
Half-hope. Half-memory.
Like some part of me still expects it to be him pulling up.
Loud. Late. And impossible to ignore
Everything is aligned,
Mel
