I built the mirror I needed.

A few years ago I came out of a relationship that spent a long time telling me my own memory was wrong. Gaslighting, blame-shifting — though I didn't have those words for it yet. By the end I couldn't tell my version of us from the one I'd been handed. I just knew I didn't trust my own read anymore.

So I went looking for the truth, and every version I had was compromised. Mine was too kind to me. My ex's blamed me for everything. My friends were on my side no matter what — which felt good, and told me nothing. I wanted a true north. An honest, outside read on what actually happened between us — the patterns underneath it, what they said about me, and how to be better next time.

Here's the thing about me: I'm better with text than I am in the room. Always have been. I can re-read a message five times and finally catch what someone meant — but I only get the live moment once, and I usually get it wrong. The subtext other people seem to catch instantly, I've had to work out on a delay. So when I went looking for answers, I didn't trust my memory of how it felt. I trusted the record of what was actually said.

And it was all still there. Thousands of messages. Months of us, in our own words — a full account of how two people actually communicated. Not how I remember it. Not the version I told my friends. The real thing. So I built something to read it back to me, both sides, without a side to take.

It surfaced the patterns I couldn't see from the inside. Who reached out and who pulled away. Where the tone turned. What the silences were doing. The gap between how I think I communicated and how I actually did — which turned out to be most of the story.

That's Subtext. It isn't therapy and it isn't advice — it's a mirror. It won't tell you who was right. It'll show you what was there, honestly, and let you decide what to do with it. That's the read I needed back then. Now it's yours.