Unchosen, Rarely Picked

In the quiet spaces between gum trees and ghosts, a woman walks toward the ache of being almost loved.

There is something about the trees at night that makes you feel watched, even when you’re not. They stand taller here in Hades Ridge—leaner, sharper, stranger. By day they’re gentle, green, even beautiful. At night, they turn. At night, the spaces between the branches shift, and the wind feels like it knows something you don’t.

You walk anyway.

It’s a quiet ache that presses against your back, the kind that doesn’t scream but lingers like an itch just low enough to make everything feel heavier. You walk because it’s better than sitting still in your own head. You walk because you’re tired of scrolling, tired of wishing, tired of replaying the same scenes in your mind, like maybe this time if you angle them just right they’ll hurt less.

Dating in this age is brutal.

You become… recyclable.

Not even recycled. Just discarded. Left in the weekly bin pickup of emotional leftovers used tissues, soggy promises, the fragments of yet another maybe.

Apps claim it’s about connection, presence, intention. But no one sticks around long enough to hold a moment still. You’re just one more screen between their distractions and their dopamine hits.

Still, you hope. That’s the sick part. That’s the most dangerous wound the hope you can’t quite kill.

He was warm. That was the problem. Not hot. Not electrifying. Just… warm. Comfortable. Present. Until he wasn’t.

His shirt was soft. Familiar. It pulled you in the way a baby clutches a pacifier—automatic, unthinking, full of need. His fabrics felt like safety, before a single word passed his lips. That was the trick. That was the choreography of his game: touch first, mean later.

He once leaned in and said, “I’m the Devil.”

You thought he was joking.

You laughed.

You wanted it to be a joke.

But the way he said it? It was like he was offering you a confession wrapped in sugar. One he never feared you’d believe—until it was too late.

You studied his eyes. You wanted to see guilt, or humour, or mischief. But all you saw was comfort. An old familiarity, as if he knew this story’s ending before you’d even started the first line.

His bathroom was cold.

Not just tiled cold—off cold.

The charcoal walls swallowed light. No windows. Just still air and something that felt like waiting.

You stood there, arms wrapped around your ribs, breathing unevenly. The goosebumps on your arms rose before the air touched them. Your spine stiffened like someone had just stepped on the freshly turned soil of your grave.

A warning. Ancient and invisible.

But you stayed.

Because you wanted magic.

You wanted to believe that if you showed your full self—mess, ache, hope and all—he’d finally be the one who didn’t flinch.

You were never whole when you met.

You were pieces held together with softness and willpower.

He was too.

Two mirrors. Cracked differently.

You saw yourself in his silence.

And so, you filled it.

There was a moment in the middle of it all, when his lips pressed against your shoulder, not demanding, just there and you let something fall. Something hard. Something you thought you’d buried.

It didn’t pour out like poetry.

It tore.

And he saw it.

He touched it.

And maybe that was enough.

Maybe that’s what love is, in its most wrecked form:

Showing the thing you’re most ashamed of, and watching someone not recoil.

But this world doesn’t make space for that kind of softness.

Not for long.

It wants filters. Banners. Twenty-second bios that summarise your soul.

If you hesitate too long, someone else has already matched with your ghost.

He told you: you were different.

That’s the line they all practice.

He said you saw him.

He said your silences felt like safety.

And then he disappeared.

Not in a grand explosion, but in smaller ways.

A message, read but not replied to.

A weekend gone quiet.

A profile reactivated.

He left breadcrumbs of disinterest...hoping you’d vacuum them up yourself, so he wouldn’t have to do the work of leaving.

You weren’t even worthy of a final sentence.

Just a fade out.

A dissolve.

And still…

your body waits for his return.

Not because he was worth it.

But because he once felt like oxygen

in a world where everyone else gave you crumbs and called it a feast.

Like a bird’s eye caught in its own reflection, so were you drawn to him.

Danger wrapped in delight.

A compilation of rain-soaked memory and fantasy, washed in something older than language.

Even the wind had a voice when you were near him.

She whispered memories that didn’t belong to you—but still ached in your ribs,

like bruises you didn’t remember earning.

There was something he knew about you

that made you unravel.

And when you came undone, he didn’t run.

He watched.

You thought that meant safety.

You mistook stillness for care.

But predators know how to wait.

You gave yourself willingly.

Not just the body—but the mind.

The metaphors.

The cracked teeth of past pain.

The hunger for permanence in a disposable world.

And when he took too much,

you told yourself it was your fault.

That you should’ve set better boundaries.

That you should’ve played it cooler.

But isn’t that the curse?

Of being real in a world that’s terrified of it?

They ask for honesty—

then flinch when it’s not coated in flirtation.

They praise vulnerability—

then blame you for the weight of it.

You were disposable.

Like takeaway leftovers.

Like the card that reads “Congratulations on the match!”

then ends up in the bin before the recycling’s even sorted.

You know better now.

You know what quiet danger feels like.

You’ve memorised the script—

the way they echo your wants,

touch your scars like scholars,

map your longings

then vanish the moment your heart asks for consistency.

You ache. Still.

But not for him.

For the idea

that someone out there might finally choose you with both hands.

Not because you begged.

Not because you made it easy.

But because they saw the fullness of you

the mess,

the magic

and didn’t blink.

Tonight, the moon hangs low over Hades Ridge.

You walk beneath the gums,

listening

to the animals shift just out of view.

The path feels familiar.

But not quite safe.

Just like dating.

Just like trying.

Just like hope.

And still—

you walk.