Chapter 22
You Can Heal Without Ever Being Whole Again.
The first few months weren't a breakdown.
It wasn't crying every night.
It wasn't locking myself in the bathroom.
It wasn't deleting photos.
It was worse than that.
It was silence.
An ache I couldn't name.
An emptiness that followed me from class to class.
A hollowness inside jokes and borrowed lipgloss and new uniforms.
People thought I moved on fast.
New school.
New friends.
New subjects.
But I had never moved on.
I was just surviving.
My new classmates liked me.
They thought I was funny.
They called me "intimidating but sweet."
They didn't know I used to smile differently.
That I used to sneak out to flower shops.
That I used to hold someone's hand like it was the only thing that made me real.
I stopped looking at boys.
Stopped comparing them to him.
Because they all looked the same when your heart's still somewhere else.
The worst day came about eight months in.
I saw him.
Just for a second.
Across the road, outside a mall.
His hair was longer.
His hoodie too big.
He had Yuri with him.
Our eyes locked.
Just for a second.
He smiled.
But there was no light behind it.
And I swear, my lungs collapsed.
I turned away before I could cry.
That night, I prayed.
I hadn't prayed in months.
But that night, I folded my hands and whispered into the dark:
"Please, God… make him happy again. Even if it's not with me. Just let him be okay."
And I cried into my pillow like I was fifteen again.
Years passed.
Two, to be exact.
I grew.
Changed.
Learned to contour.
Got better at lying.
Told people I wasn't interested in dating.
And I wasn't.
Because no one looked at me the way he did.
And I didn't want a love that felt like a maybe.
I wanted him.
Still.
Quietly.
Stupidly.
Completely.
Even after all this time.
End of Chapter 22.