how do you leave someone who never held you?
I kept going over it in my head.
How would i give him the gifts,
nothing too grand, just thoughtful.
A thank you. A soft, final gesture.
Then I'd look him in the eyes and say:
"This has to be the last time."
But every time I rehearsed the words, I felt like a fraud.
Because how do you break up with someone
who never officially held you?
How do you leave a situationship
when the situation never claimed you?
There was no anniversary.
No label.
No "us."
Just memories and gestures.
Just warmth and withdrawal.
Just… almost.
Still, I needed closure.
Not from him.
From me.
And still, I wanted to tell him.
To put a period at the end of a sentence that had dragged on too long.
But I couldn't.
Not then.
Not face to face.
Because I was scared.
That he'd twist it.
That he'd remind me of all he'd done, the health bills, the Upwork help, the little "check-ins."
That I'd crumble again.
So I thought about disappearing.
The kind of quiet that doesn't announce itself, it just stops showing up.
Irish ghosting, someone once called it.
Where you don't block, you don't rant…
you just leave the door you once stood at.
I imagined him texting weeks later,
"Where are you?"
Just like before.
And this time, I'd feel nothing.
Or maybe a little something, but not enough to turn around.
But I also felt something else:
a tiny breath of peace.
Not because I had let go…
But because I was trying to.
And trying counts for something.
It counts when you choose yourself quietly.
It counts when you start to unlearn the rhythm of someone else's silence.
It counts when you realize love shouldn't have to hurt just to be real.
I wasn't healed.
But I was honest.
And maybe for the first time, I was brave enough to mean it.
And when I looked in the mirror,
I didn't see someone abandoned.
I saw someone coming back to herself.
Someone who stayed too long.
But also someone who finally stood up.
The grief didn't vanish.
But it softened.
And in its place,
came space.
Space for breath.
Space for healing.
Space for love that won't require vanishing to be worthy.
So no, I didn't give him a speech.
I didn't explain why I stopped showing up.
Because sometimes, the best goodbye,
It's the one you never say out loud.