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I just want her to care a little. It is a small thing to want. I have wanted bigger things and never said them out loud. This one I ask for in my head, all day.

The problem is what I built around it.

I watch for it everywhere. How quickly she replies. How warm the last line is. Whether she asks something back. Whether today's silence is the same as yesterday's. I know what I am doing while I do it. That is the part that shames me. I am embarrassed by how much of my day she takes up. Not the days we were together. The days now.

I have turned her into a question I keep asking.

The truth is not that she stopped caring. I need to stop making my emotional stability depend on discovering how much she cares. I made that my job, and I start it every morning before I have decided whether I want to get up. Some days I am not waiting for a reply. I am waiting to find out whether I matter. Those are not the same thing. I only noticed recently.

She may care about me, but she may never care for me in the way I need.

I may never know either way. Care is not something I can measure. There is no number I can check at the end of the day. It does not grow because I need it more.

Everyone knows this. Knowing it has never once stopped me from checking my phone at two in the morning. And then at three. And then lying to myself about why I am awake.

So what do I do with the want? I am not going to pretend it is gone. It is not. It sits with me at breakfast. It comes back when the day goes quiet. And calling it weakness would only give me one more thing to be ashamed of. The answer is small too. It is to take back the job I gave her. Not to stop loving her, and not to pretend I do not. Just to stop making my peace depend on something only she can hand me.

Maybe she will come back. Maybe not. Either way, I do not have to sit inside that question while I wait. I have spent enough of my life in that question. It is a small room, and I have been in it for a long time.

So the chasing has to stop. Not the wanting. I am not going anywhere. I am only going to stop counting.

I want her to care. That has not gone away. I keep trying not to wait for it. Some days I manage it. Some days I do not, and those days go missing.

This is not the kind of love that ends. It has nowhere to go now, and it stays.