Last night was the first night I didn’t check his social media… or hers. The silence of that choice surprised me. This morning, as I poured my coffee, I realized he wasn’t the first thing to rise in my mind. I woke up happy and stayed happy. The quiet of my apartment—once unbearable—now feels like steady breathing. I cook meals I crave, for no one but myself. I spend weekends with people who make my world feel bright, and I’ve grown new hobbies that stretch both my mind and my circle. Six months later, I am not the girl he left. Sometimes I catch myself smiling, amazed at how frightened I once was of this quiet; now I see it’s the very thing that saved me.

But April was loud. April was a storm. April found a girl stripped down to a skeleton—heart taken, beaten, abandoned. I remember the weight loss, the crying, the way every step felt like wading through mud. Days were dim, nights were impossible. The clarity wouldn’t stop pounding in my mind: he had been lying in quiet ways, borrowing my light to build a future he never intended to share. My company had been a ladder, and once he reached the top, he climbed into a new reality with ease—one that didn’t include me. He got everything he wanted that month—a dream job, a new girl, a sparkling future. The world ended for me. I was left with the sound of my pain against the echo of his unbothered joy.

And to think it began with such hope. A year earlier, I had been doing the work: the self-reflection, the healing, the waiting for the right person to arrive when I was finally ready to receive love again. When Collin appeared, he felt like the answer to every wish I’d ever cast into stars or wells. He became my best friend, poured into me the kind of love I’d nearly stopped believing existed. Being with him felt like the fairytale I had dreamed of—a beginning bright enough to linger long after the wake.