What were their real intentions with me?

The cards can't report what's inside their head — they can show the shape of what was actually said and where their attention went, and the pattern here says the intentions were less formed than you're treating them.

Past — King of Swords, reversed. Whatever started between you came in through argument, position, explanation, and reasoning rather than openness. Reversed, this reads as intent that got organized around being right or defensible, and a first move that was taken as a maneuver rather than as a plain request. If the beginning was framed as a case being made, then the intention underneath was likely a proposal to be weighed, not a feeling to be received.

Present — Strength, reversed. The attention is there; the confidence in it isn't. This is the position of restraint, self-control running thin, and feelings being handled by bracing rather than by holding. If what you notice now is them pulling back, going quiet, or managing their reactions, that reads less like indifference and more like a person spending effort to keep the feeling in check. The card does not say they feel something; it says the way their energy is currently organized around you is careful, not free.

Future — Nine of Swords, upright. If this continues as it is, the shape ahead is worry, guilt, and mental rehearsal — thinking around something rather than saying it. Note the element: two of these three cards are Air, and the middle card is a Major, so this is a structure-level situation about how the two of you handle what gets said, not a small misunderstanding. Both reversals mean energy turned inward; one upright card means it does not stay that way if something changes.

The conditional judgment: if the record of what they actually said shows their reasons were stated plainly and their behavior matched them, then the "intention" you were reading as hidden was probably simple and you've been over-reading it. If the record shows reasoning without a matching action — cases argued, no request ever made, no dates ever proposed — then the cards read as intentions that never got admitted, even to themselves, and the strain in the present position comes from that gap. The cards do not tell you which is true; only the record does.

Your one step, inside 48 hours: open your messages and notes and write down the *literal* things they said — the actual sentences, dates, and requests, quoted, not summarized. Then for the next week, keep a one-line log of what they actually do and say, with no interpretation in it. Bring that log back, and it will show you more than any card can about whether the intention was ever spoken.

Would you like the three cards drawn as a picture, or this saved to your journal?