No one tells you what to do after the goodbye.
Not the real kind —
the kind that doesn't slam doors or end in tears,
but settles in your lungs like a quiet ache,
like a note held too long in a room that's already empty.
---
I moved to a new part of the city.
A place with cracked windows and too much silence.
The kind of silence I used to fear.
Now, it was the only thing that didn't lie to me.
The old posters of my face still hung in subway stations,
but the girl in those pictures was someone I didn't know anymore.
Someone who hadn't yet broken — or grown.
I wasn't that girl.
Not after that kiss.
Not after the song that ended us.
---
The apartment was cold,
but it had space —
space to breathe,
space to remember,
space to forget.
I filled it with plants I didn't know how to take care of.
Books I never finished.
Sheets I never ironed.
Music I never shared.
It was messy.
It was mine.
---
Weeks passed.
I stopped checking my messages.
Stopped looking for his name in every unknown number.
But I didn't stop singing.
Only this time, the music didn't come from stages or scripts.
It came at 2 a.m.,
on the floor,
with my knees pulled to my chest,
and my voice barely louder than a whisper.
I wrote songs I never intended to release.
Melodies that bled.
Lyrics that healed.
Some nights, I recorded them —
but only for myself.
---
Then, one morning, I woke up to a voicemail.
Not from him.
From someone who had been watching me quietly.
> "I heard your raw track from the underground loop —
didn't know you were still writing. I'm producing a side-stage show.
Low-profile. Real. Honest.
You'd fit."
At first, I thought it was a scam.
Then I realized it was a door.
Not back to what I was —
but forward,
toward who I might become.
---
The venue was small.
Bare walls.
No glitter.
Just a mic stand, a loop station, and chairs that creaked when people breathed too loud.
I liked it.
Here, I didn't need to be her —
the girl from the screens, the dramas, the heartbreak headlines.
I could just be me.
Whatever that meant now.
---
The night before the show, I walked the city for hours.
It was raining —
not enough to drench,
just enough to make everything look more cinematic than it really was.
I found myself outside the old studio we used to rehearse in.
Still closed.
Still standing.
I stood there for a long time,
and whispered a line from a song he never heard:
> "You were the key to a cage I didn't know I was in."
---
The show came.
I sang like no one was recording.
I didn't wear makeup.
Didn't rehearse small talk.
I barely even introduced myself.
I just… told the truth.
And when the last note faded,
no one clapped for a few seconds.
Not because they didn't like it —
but because they couldn't.
Because something about pain sung beautifully
makes you forget how to respond.
---
Afterwards, a girl approached me.
She was maybe nineteen.
Eyes full of questions, voice shaking:
> "Did that really happen to you?
The love part?"
I nodded.
> "Does it ever stop hurting?"
I looked her straight in the eyes.
> "No.
But it becomes a different kind of pain.
One you learn to carry without bleeding."
---
That night, I walked home barefoot.
The city was quiet.
My heart, not so much.
I didn't know what tomorrow would bring.
But for the first time since that goodbye —
I wasn't waiting for him.
I was waiting for me.