One Would Think (But It Isn’t)

TW: mentions of manipulation, suggestions of abuse, and trust issues

One would think being gaslit would hurt, burn even, but there is something almost pleasurable about being manipulated. The backhanded compliments and familiarity buzz pleasantly in your skull. You shrink away from the unknown.

And one would think a healthy friendship would share the relief of a cool rag on feverish skin, but there is something wretched about being loved at surface value. Without any further questioning. Without having to explain yourself the way you desperately want to. They don’t laugh when you beat yourself into the ground; their brows furrow with concern. The allusions to affection shudder in your skull and make your teeth chatter.

And after wading through the rippling tides of a relationship, you would expect it to hurt. You would expect your skin to prickle, and numb, and sting with cold, blistering heat, but it doesn’t. Hypothermia never sets in. No blows land. No bruises bloom from an unthoughtful syllable. Your mind buzzes with thoughts of how this can twist to end horribly.

One would think the waves would be scorching, a sick manifestation of ‘being in hot water,’ but it isn’t. It’s lukewarm, like the brush of knuckles over a knee or the brief flush when hands knock together carelessly.

Writing by Teagan Willyard, ‘26

One would think it would be roiling and starving, licking high and higher and higher until the bitterness of reality floods over your tongue, but it isn’t. It’s soft, and warm, and safe, lapping gently at your bloody knees. It stings but just for a moment, like a bandage being ripped off, and fades into something not unlike sunlight pooling in your lap on a lazy afternoon.

One would think they would grow tired of you. Because everyone does.

They don’t.

One would think it’s the honeymoon phase, and it’ll churn into something tortuous and inescapable. It doesn’t. It wraps gentle arms around your waist and rests its chin on your shoulder, murmuring in a voice like a steaming shower in the winter or borrowed clothes when it’s cold of little things they know about you: your favorite kind of tea, the shuddering fear of blood tucked deep inside, the scars the others left on you. They remember. They remember. They remember. The vibrations behind your eyes are a strange one. No one’s bothered before.

And one would think it would hurt. That the arms would tighten like a noose, and the voice would grow mocking and become as tolerable as fork tines on a glass plate, but. But it never comes.

The throbbing inevitability you were so sure of fades to a dull, buzzing confusion that rattles in your skull. It feels like a warning sign. The shake of a snake’s tail when you step too close, telling you to run away, run away, run away.

But you don’t.

One would think you would grow tired of the clinging thing that is affection.

One would think you would flinch away from having your skin peeled back to reveal the vulnerable parts of you. The soft, squishy bits that could be—should be—subject to scrutiny.

But you don’t.

Instead the sight of them, like a Pavlov response, hums pleasantly in your head. You’ve never been able to choose a favorite song, but you know this is it. You submit to the caressing tides, allow them to cradle you, and run intangible fingers through your hair. You are safe. You are warm.

You are home.

And one would think you would have let them love you sooner.

Writing by Teagan Willyard, ‘26

Art by Natalie Allen, ‘27