When ‘I Hate You’ Meant I Couldn’t Lose You

We were standing by the coffee machine when she said it — “I hate you.”

Her voice was soft, almost joking. But her eyes? They were telling a completely different story. They were tired, a little red, and carrying the weight of every unsaid emotion between us.

I smiled back, pretending I didn’t notice.

“Yeah? That’s new,” I replied, sipping the coffee I no longer cared about.

The truth is, I’ve heard her say “I hate you” more times than “I love you.”

And yet, every single time she said it, it made me stay. Not because I liked hearing it — but because I knew what she actually meant.

It started months ago. We weren’t dating, but we were more than friends — that confusing, fragile space that sits in between. We’d fight over stupid things: what song to play in the car, who replied late, who cared more, who didn’t care enough. And every time she got mad, she’d throw the same line at me — “I hate you.”

But then she’d do things that would quietly cancel it out.

She remembered how I took my tea.

She saved the last slice of pizza even when she was hungry.

She texted me, “Reached?” before I even unlocked my door.

She sent songs without captions because she knew I’d get the message.

And sometimes, she sat silently next to me when I had nothing to say, just so I didn’t have to say it alone.

Once, I confronted her.

“Why do you always say you hate me?”

She shrugged and said, “Because if I said the opposite, you’d leave.”

That hit me harder than I expected.

In a world where ‘I love you’ is thrown around too easily — filtered through good lighting, Instagram captions, and short-lived promises — her ‘I hate you’ felt honest. Raw. Almost… sacred. It wasn’t pretty, but it was real.

And real love? It’s not always poetic.

Sometimes it comes dressed in anger, in insecurity, in fear of losing the only person who makes silence comfortable.

I once told her I loved her.

She looked away and whispered, “Don’t.”

But her hand reached for mine under the table.

That’s when I knew.

Some people don’t say “I love you” because they’re scared of what it might break.

So instead, they push you away with words like “I hate you,” hoping you’ll stay and prove them wrong.

And I did.

Because deep down, I realized —

Her “I hate you” had more love than a thousand “I love you”s ever could.

Sometimes, the loudest ‘I love you’ is the one that never dares to speak its name — but fights like hell to never let you go.