He set the messages to disappear. I wrote a whole book to remember.
The plan was simple:
Just drop off the gifts this time. No cold feet this time.
No.
Just two small tokens to say thank you and goodbye.
Just hand it over and leave.
But even as I held the gifts in my hands,
I realized I had been holding on to something else, too:
All of it.
Every message.
Every mood swing.
Every time I adjusted myself to be easier to love.
And when I opened our chat again to revisit something,
a message, a memory, a small trace of us..
I saw that it was gone.
He had set our messages to disappear.
Not just now.
From the very beginning.
Every word had an expiration date.
Every laugh. Every " will you come over." Every "how's your body?"
Set to vanish in 24 hours.
He was erasing it as we lived it.
And I didn't even notice.
That's when it hit me:
this was always temporary for him.
Even when I was steady.
Even when I stayed.
I used to reread his messages at night like they were proof.
Now I couldn't even find them.
But you know what?
I didn't panic.
Didn't cry.
Didn't feel like something had been taken from me.
Because I had already written it down.
Piece by piece.
Line by line.
In this book.
He deleted.
I documented.
He let it fade.
I let it become.
And maybe that's the real closure.
Not the talk I never gave.
Not the apology I never got.
Just the knowing:
I remember.
And now, I'm done.
I gave him the gifts.
And this time, I left for REAL.
Not with a bang.
Not with a final plea.
Just a quiet, full heart.
I had carried too much for too long.
But now?
The gifts were in my hands.
And the closure was in my chest.