I’ve been thinking about self-deception lately and how often it disguises itself as hope. This prompted me to reflect on my relationship with my first boyfriend. When I learned that he had a fiancée, I continued hoping for a future that reality kept quietly contradicting.

One day, he told me he had got married but still wanted to see me. Again, I accepted fragments of attention as enough to sustain my hope.

There was a window upstairs that overlooked the bus stop. I always waited there for him to show up. Some evenings brought relief. Others ended in silence. The rhythm of anticipation followed by disappointment slowly became normal to me. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t only waiting for him, but for a sense of being chosen — for reassurance that what I hoped for was real.

Eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I finally left. When I left, I gave him a lighter because he never carried one for his cigarettes. Looking back, I think that gift said everything about me then — even while letting go, part of me still wanted to care for him.

In the end, I can see it now for what it was — self-deception, disguised as hope.

And that is all it feels like now: something I once lived through.