I have 1 photo of us, together. Proof that you're not just a dream.

Why does it sting? I wasn't expecting it to hurt. I thought enough time had passed. I thought I'd already made peace with the fact that we're just two people who happened to be strangers and then met, loved, and eventually became strangers again. Reading about it hurt more than I expected. I wish I never had this strange ability to recognize you among the sea of usernames and posts on this platform. Somehow, no matter how much time has passed, my heart still knows it's you before my mind even catches up. I wish I didn't. Reading your posts about him was the final coffin that shut the nail, the camel that broke the straw. I've deleted, on my end, our chat thread on IG and deleted all the screenshots of your posts that I loved to read. I'm not writing this because I want anything from you. I don't want to reopen doors that we've already closed. I don't want answers, and I'm not hoping you'll somehow read this and come back. I just needed to admit to myself that it hurts. Not hurt like I'm in anguish, because what I feel is quiet. It's quiet but somehow heavy. Like something I've learned to carry every day without realizing how much it still weighs. Still, despite how much this hurts, I don't want to hold on to bitterness. I truly hope you're happy. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder how you've been. If you've found the kind of peace you were always searching for. If life has finally become kinder to you than it was back then. If work got a little easier. I hope it has. You deserve it. You deserve it more than anyone I know.

I hope that, finally, the road paved with the fragments of your heartaches and disappointments has led you to the one you always deserved. I hope you're loved in all the ways you once needed to be, even if that love was never meant to be mine. I don't know if I'll ever completely stop recognizing you in the thousands of posts and comments here. I don't know if there will ever come a day when your name doesn't make my heart hesitate for just a second. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's how it's really meant to be. Some people leave without taking everything. Sometimes they leave behind a love that never disappears, it just exists in silence.

Wherever life has taken you, I hope it's been gentle with you. I hope you've found your way. If this is where our stories finally part, then I hope yours is filled with the happiness we couldn't find together.

I'll always be quietly rooting for your happiness.

Goodbye.