Avoiding the awkward talk doesn’t cancel it. It just reschedules it for a worse day.

Unspoken things do not decay, they compound. The conversation you skipped becomes a conversation plus everything that happened while it was pending, plus the fact that you both know it was being avoided. What was going to be uncomfortable turns into something with history attached. Waiting rarely improves the terms.

Say the first sentence badly rather than waiting to be able to say it well. Pick a time when neither of you is already tense, and open with what you want rather than what went wrong. Short and early beats polished and late.