How Do You Tell TRUST, You've got Trust Issues?

3:20am. I just woke up. Not because I wanted to. Not because I had finished sleeping. Not because my body had suddenly discovered productivity. TwoCents tagged me? No! TRUST Did. So naturally, I did what every emotionally unstable man with a phone does. I checked. And there she was. Trust. Again. Writing to me about red velvet cake. At 3:20am. I had read. And now I reply. This is how you know something is wrong with your life. You are supposed to be asleep, but you're reading a woman named Trust telling you she misses you. And the worst part? You're smiling. Hmmm. But let's address the elephant in the room. How do you tell Trust you've got trust issues? Because this is not an ordinary conversation. If your name is Trust, and I say, “I have trust issues,” you can easily hear, “I have issues with you.” And that's not what I mean. Probably. Maybe. I'm still thinking about it. Because I don't trust time either. Time is suspicious. You give Time one minute, and it takes sixty seconds. You give it an hour, and suddenly it's midnight. You give it a relationship, and suddenly you're sitting at 3:20am wondering how somebody went from stranger, to person, to problem, to home. I don't trust Time. And somehow, Time keeps bringing me back to Trust. See my dilemma? Then you started talking about red velvet. Now you've gone and opened another file. I remember that cake store. I remember meeting you. I remember the cake. I remember the little details that didn't seem important at the time. Funny how memory works. It doesn't always save the important things. Sometimes it saves the useless ones. The way somebody laughed. The way they looked at you. The stupid thing they said. The food they liked. The name they gave you. The exact kind of cake they bought. The cat they left you to look after. Especially the cat. You remember that cat? You left me with somebody else's cat like I had applied for the position. And somehow, I accepted the job. No salary. No benefits. No annual leave. Just whiskers and responsibility. But that's the funny thing. I did a lot of things around you that I probably wouldn't have done for anybody else. Sometimes because I wanted to. Sometimes because you mattered. And sometimes... let me confess... I was trying to earn your trust. Yes. Me. Mr “I Don't Care.” I cared. I just didn't want you to know how much. So I pretended. I pretended to like some things. Pretended certain things didn't bother me. Pretended I understood things I absolutely did not understand. Pretended I was cool. Pretended I wasn't checking my phone. Pretended I wasn't waiting for your reply. Pretended. Pretended. Pretended. All because somewhere along the line, I realised your trust was something I wanted. And isn't that funny? I was busy trying to earn Trust, while Trust was busy becoming someone I needed to trust. Life has jokes. Bad ones. Very expensive ones. Then you started talking about the wedding. The matching PJs. Your favourite meal. The pictures you wanted to send me. The little moments that reminded you of me. And suddenly, I understood something. You weren't really talking about the things. You were talking about the absence. You noticed me in the spaces where I wasn't. And perhaps that's what missing someone really is. Not remembering that they existed. Not remembering what they said. But noticing all the places they should have been. The empty side of the joke. The unanswered message. The picture you didn't send. The meal that suddenly tasted different. The cake that somehow needed somebody who wasn't there. Red velvet without me. Imagine. And then you asked, “Do you miss me?” Ah. Trust. Why would you ask a question you already knew the answer to? Because yes. I miss you. I miss the madness. I miss the inside jokes. I miss being called Pookie. I miss the random conversations that had absolutely no business lasting as long as they did. I miss the version of us that didn't need explanations. I miss the little things. The stupid things. The things we probably thought would always be there. But here's the problem. Missing somebody doesn't automatically mean you've solved everything. A heart can miss somebody and still remember why it was hurt. A heart can want somebody back and still ask questions. A heart can forgive without immediately forgetting. And a heart can say, “Come back” while the brain is standing at the door saying, “Excuse me, can we see some identification?” That's where my trust issues come in. Because I don't want promises that sound beautiful at midnight. I want something that still makes sense at noon. I don't want a feeling that survives only in the dark. I want something that can survive daylight. Because anybody can miss somebody at 3:20am. The real question is what happens at 3:20pm. When the emotions have gone quiet. When the cake is finished. When the music stops. When TwoCents isn't watching. When nobody is writing poetic paragraphs. When it's just two people deciding whether what they had is worth rebuilding. That's where Trust becomes important. Not the name. The thing. The actual thing. Trust. The thing you can't demand. The thing you can't rush. The thing you can't fake forever. The thing I spent so much time trying to earn from you, while secretly hoping you'd give me enough of it to stop being afraid. So yes, I have trust issues. And yes, your name being Trust makes this incredibly inconvenient. Because every time I say, “I don't trust you,” it sounds personal. Every time I say, “I need time,” it sounds like I'm blaming the clock. And every time I say, “I miss you,” it sounds like I'm already halfway back. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. Maybe 3:20am is just a terrible time to make decisions. Maybe red velvet is just a dangerous cake. Maybe cats are secretly relationship therapists. And maybe... Trust is asking me to trust Trust. So here I am. Awake. Smiling. Thinking. Remembering. Still not trusting the time. Still working on trusting you. Still wondering if two people can find their way back to something they never completely lost. Because maybe the hardest thing isn't loving again. Maybe it's believing again. And maybe that's what we're really talking about. Not cake. Not distance. Not TwoCents. Not Pookie. Not the cat. Trust. So, Trust... How do you tell Trust you've got trust issues? You tell her at 3:20am. You tell her you're scared. You tell her you remember. You tell her you miss her. You tell her your heart is open, but the security guard is still at the gate. And then you ask the only question a man with trust issues can reasonably ask a woman named Trust... Can I Trust Trust?

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