Angela White I Waited __top__ Instant

And now? Now you’re surprised. You stand there in the doorway, Angela White, looking like a photograph of something I used to love. You say, "I didn't think you had it in you." You say, "Why now?"

I waited through the long afternoons when your shadow was longer than your patience. I waited through the texts you left on read, through the promises you swallowed like bad wine. I became an expert in the geometry of your back— the way it turned from me in that bed, a curve of marble, cold and magnificent. angela white i waited

(A Monologue of Reckoning)

Angela White, I waited. Now watch me go. And now

I could have left a thousand times. The first time you pulled the sheets over your head and built a wall out of silence. The second time you chose a party, a paycheck, a nothing over the quiet storm brewing in our kitchen. I could have walked out into the rain and never looked back. You say, "I didn't think you had it in you

You think waiting is passive? You think it’s just sitting on a stoop, watching for headlights? No. Waiting is a violent art. It is a clenched fist inside a velvet glove. It is a clock whose ticking sounds like a hammer on a coffin. Every second I waited, I was building a case. Every hour, I was memorizing the exact shade of your betrayal.

I waited until the waiting turned into watching. And the watching turned into seeing. And seeing? Seeing is the end of love.