When liking stays,and wanting fades .
There is a quiet, almost stubborn hope that survives even after betrayal;not loud enough to demand a second chance, yet persistent enough to linger in the background of the heart. It exists in the smallest, most unguarded place within us, whispering that people are capable of change, that remorse might be genuine, that time could soften what was once broken. And when they return with carefully chosen apologies and promises shaped by regret, we listen;not out of weakness, but because memory has a way of romanticizing what once felt safe. We may still like them, perhaps more deeply than we admit, but liking has grown cautious, measured, restrained.
What changes is not the presence of love, but the threshold of tolerance. Wanting someone now requires more than affection; it requires emotional safety, consistency, and trust rebuilt from the ground up. The heart remembers intimacy, but the soul recalls the cost of healing, and that awareness creates distance. There is no bitterness in this refusal, no resentment; only discernment. Hope may still exist, but it no longer governs our choices. Walking away from someone we love is not an act of cruelty or fear; it is the quiet assertion of self-respect, the understanding that love without security is not a sacrifice worth repeating.
And at the end we are still fond of them,but we don't desire them anymore.
-Rishika Nayak.
