Chapter 1
I was in my room when it happened—curled into the corner of my bed like I always am when I don’t want to think too hard.
The lights were off, except for the glow of my phone.
The speaker hummed softly from the corner of the room, connected to my Spotify like it had always been.
The algorithm wasn’t cruel, it was just indifferent.
Then that song came on.
“I don’t wanna be okay without you.”
A bitter laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Charlie Burg’s voice drifted through the apartment with that quiet tenderness that never asked for permission.
What an unfortunate choice for Spotify.
Or maybe, a perfect one.
Because mourning has strange tastes.
My thumb moved on instinct, scrolling past faces I barely remembered, lives I didn’t belong to.
And then there you were.
Not you alone.
Never just you anymore.
You were smiling in a way I hadn’t seen in a long time, your head tilted toward a girl whose name you hadn’t said yet.
Her hand was on your arm like it belonged there.
Your bodies leaned into each other with a familiarity that felt earned, practiced.
A soft launch—careful, intentional, cruel in its subtlety.
I froze.
The room felt smaller, like the walls had leaned in to watch me notice.
I tapped the post.
Once.
Twice.
Like maybe it would change if I looked at it long enough.
The comments loaded slowly, one by one, and I read them all even though I knew I shouldn’t have.
So happy for you.
You look good together.
About time you hard-launched.
No one asked who I was.
No one wondered who came before her.
My chest tightened in a way I didn’t recognize at first.
It wasn’t anger.
It wasn’t sadness either.
It was something quieter.
Something heavier.
The kind of feeling that doesn’t scream, it settles.
I told myself I was just curious.
That this was normal.
That exes look sometimes.
That it didn’t mean anything.
But my fingers were already scrolling through her page.
There were photos I hadn’t seen before.
Candid ones.
Soft ones.
You looked… free.
Public.
Unafraid.
The way I never let you be with me.
I swallowed and locked my phone, pressing it face-down against my chest as if that could undo what I’d seen.
As if I hadn’t just reopened a door I swore I’d closed.
I thought I was over you.
That’s the lie I told myself the longest—that I left because it was toxic, because it was wrong, because I was suffocating.
And maybe all of that was true.
Maybe we were hurting each other in ways we didn’t know how to fix.
But none of those truths prepared me for the way my hands shook at the sight of you loving someone else.
It wasn’t you that hurt the most.
It was the life you were living now—the one I was too afraid to imagine with you.
The one where your love didn’t have to be hidden.
The one where your hand could rest on someone’s arm without hesitation.
I stared at the ceiling and laughed quietly, because it felt absurd.
Because after everything, I still found myself asking the same useless question.
What if I had been braver?
I didn’t miss the fights.
I didn’t miss the fear.
I didn’t even miss the version of us that broke each other.
What I missed was the girl who loved me quietly in the beginning—before it became complicated, before I made her something she had to hide.
I turned my phone back on.
Your post was still there, unchanged, like it hadn’t just undone something in me. I stared at it longer than I meant to, studying details that weren’t mine to keep anymore—the way your smile curved, the way her presence fit beside you so easily.
I told myself this feeling was normal.
That anyone would feel strange seeing someone from their past move on.
That this tightness in my chest didn’t mean anything at all.
But my vision blurred anyway.
I didn’t notice the tears at first.
I only realized something was wrong when the screen shimmered, when I had to blink too many times just to keep your face in focus.
One tear slipped down the side of my nose, quiet and unannounced, like it hadn’t needed my permission.
I wiped my cheek quickly, almost embarrassed, even though I was alone.
“Why am I crying?” I whispered to no one.
I wasn’t angry.
I wasn’t heartbroken.
At least, I didn’t think I was.
I had ended things.
I had walked away.
I had survived just fine without you—so this didn’t make sense.
None of it did.
I locked my phone and turned onto my side, facing the wall, trying to convince myself that this was just a passing feeling.
A leftover echo.
Something that would fade if I ignored it long enough.
Still, my chest ached in a way I couldn’t name.
No, I don’t wanna be okay without you.
I turned turned off the spotify aggressively.
And as I lay there, staring at nothing, I wondered—not for the first time—why seeing you happy felt so unfamiliar.
