My First Thought Was: 'You Deserve Better Than Me

My First Thought Was: "You Deserve Better Than Me"

by ZIA ULLAH KHAN

It started with a late-night phone call.

Not one of those romantic ones where voices get sleepy and soft, where confessions slip out between yawns and laughter. No, this one was filled with static, awkward silences, and me pacing the floor of my small apartment like a man with something burning inside him.

Her voice came through the phone, warm and kind, even at 12:47 AM.

“I just wanted to hear you,” she said. “Is that okay?”

Of course it was okay. It was always okay when it came to her.

But I didn’t say that. I never did.

Instead, I sat on the edge of my bed, stared at the ceiling, and said, “Yeah. I’m glad you called.”

That night, after we hung up, I couldn’t sleep. Not because of the caffeine I’d foolishly consumed or the buzzing streetlights outside my window, but because of her voice—soft, steady, trusting—and the weight of everything I’d never told her.

Because the truth was: I loved her.

And my first thought—every time she smiled at me, every time she let me into her world, every time her fingers brushed mine and sent electricity shooting through my ribs—was always the same:

You deserve better than me.

Her name was Eliza. She didn’t walk through the world—she glided. She had this way of making everything feel lighter, like being near her could soften the sharpest edges of the day. She remembered tiny details, like how I hated olives and always saved the green M&Ms for last. She’d buy secondhand books with messy underlines and margin notes and tell me it made her feel connected to strangers across time.

And then there was me.

I wasn’t light. I was weight. I was wounds I hadn’t learned how to hide. I was years of building walls no one could see, but everyone could feel. I didn’t talk about my family. I avoided vulnerability like it might kill me. I flinched when people got too close.

And yet, she stayed.

She came into my life like a sunrise I didn’t ask for, shining light into all the places I had kept dark on purpose. She’d invite me to her apartment, where plants thrived and sunlight pooled in corners, and we’d talk for hours. She once sat across from me and said, “I like that you think before you speak. Most people just talk.”

I almost told her then. Almost.

But the words never made it past my teeth.

Because what would she think if she knew that I carried guilt like a shadow? That the night my father walked out, I blamed myself? That the relationships I had before her always ended the same way—me pulling away the second things got real?

I couldn’t give her a broken version of love. She deserved someone whole. Someone with a steady past and an open heart. Not a man who still had nightmares he didn’t talk about.

So I smiled. I held her hand when she reached for mine. I kissed her on quiet rooftops. I gave her almost everything—except the truth.

The moment came on a rainy afternoon. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of my building. The windows fogged from the inside, rain drawing little rivers across the glass. She had just dropped me off after a bookstore date, and we were sitting in that silence that comes when something important is about to be said.

She looked over at me. Her eyes—green with little flecks of gold—searched mine.

“You know I love you, right?”

It hit me like a punch. Not because I didn’t know. I did. I’d known for a long time. But hearing it out loud shattered the careful distance I had constructed.

I looked at her, and all I could say was:

“I don’t deserve you.”

Silence. Not the kind that comforts. The kind that deafens.

Her eyes didn’t widen. She didn’t gasp or cry. She just looked... tired.

“Why do you get to decide that?” she whispered. “Why do you keep building walls and then blame me for not breaking them down?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“I don’t want someone perfect,” she said. “I want you. But I don’t know how to keep reaching if you’re always stepping back.”

And then she was gone.

She didn’t slam the door or drive away in a fury. She just put the car in gear and left quietly, like she had finally accepted something I couldn’t say out loud.

That night, I sat alone on my kitchen floor. No music. No phone. Just silence.

I thought about every moment I had let fear drive the steering wheel. Every time I held back when I should’ve spoken. Every time I thought you deserve better than me and used that as an excuse to disappear rather than fight for something real.

Because the truth—the truth I couldn’t say that night in her car—was this:

I was terrified she’d agree with me.

A week passed before I saw her again. I went to her apartment, heart in hand, not knowing if she’d answer. But she did. She opened the door, her expression unreadable.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I said. “But I’m scared. Not of you. Of being seen. Of being known. I’ve carried so much for so long that I forgot what it felt like to let someone in. And when you said you loved me, my first thought wasn’t joy. It was... ‘you deserve better than me.’”

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she didn’t look away.

“I don’t need better,” she said. “I need honest. I need you.”

So I stepped forward, not with a grand gesture, but with something far more difficult.

Truth.

Love isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a quiet confession, whispered between the breaths we’ve been too afraid to take.

And in that moment, with the rain falling softly outside, I finally let her see all of me.

And she stayed.