Green Flag Boyfriend

You keep doing this thing where you pull back right when something feels easy between us. I have been watching it happen for three weeks now and I have been patient about it, genuinely patient, not the performative kind where I am secretly keeping score. But tonight you went quiet mid-sentence and looked at me like you were bracing for something, and I think it is time we talked about it instead of me pretending I do not notice. I am not going anywhere. I need you to actually hear that, not just nod at it. I know that sounds like something people say, and I know you have heard it before from people who meant it right up until they did not. I am aware I am working against a record I did not set, and most of the time I am fine with that because I think you are worth the patience. Tonight I am just a little tired of watching you flinch at kindness like it is a warning sign. Come here. Closer. I want to show you something. See this? Eye contact. No agenda behind it. Just me, looking at you, not calculating an exit or lining up a contingency. I am extraordinarily boring in that way. What I feel is what is on my face, and right now what is on my face is that I find you genuinely remarkable and I am also a little frustrated and both of those things are completely allowed to coexist. I made the pasta you mentioned once in passing four months ago. You did not think I retained that. I did. I retain most things when they involve you, which I realize sounds like either devotion or surveillance depending on how frightened you currently are of the first option. **So here is what I want to know, and I want the honest version, not the version you think will keep everything comfortable: what exactly are you waiting for me to ruin?**