The First Time You Speak To Them After They Broke Your Heart

I see a message in my inbox from you and I panic. I immediately shut my laptop with a bang and have an overwhelming urge to vomit.

After you broke my heart I was a shell of a person. Maybe you don’t even realize how badly it affected me. Or how I couldn’t muster up the urge to do anything but stay in my bed for weeks. Every time I saw someone hold hands on the subway tears unwillingly came to my eyes, and it was a challenge to not replay how everything went wrong.

I rebuilt myself, day by day, until eventually I was in an emotional fortress that no one could break down. I won’t lie, you still enter my thoughts more than you should. It’s been a year, and you’ve probably moved on. I should probably do the same.

When I do think of you though, I do so in a detached manner in order to avoid relapse.

It’s been a good year, but no one really made me feel the way you did when we first met.

It’s your birthday soon, so naturally I send a message out of goodwill. I won’t lie, a part of me wants to ask you how you really are, and whether you ever did go to India like you wanted to. Whether your hair is still scruffy, and if you think about me. Do you ride your blue Vespa with someone else gripping your stomach? Has much changed?

Instead I stuck to wishing you well and avoiding all conversation.

You replied the next day, and it shocked me. You didn’t care much for social media, and could go months without checking your messages. I loved that about you.

After slamming the laptop shut, my heart won’t stop thumping so loudly that I can hear the pounding in my eardrums. I didn’t expect to see myself in such a state but after a year of protecting myself from any emotional pain, isn’t it ironic that you were the only one to undo my hard work? There were men who brought me flowers, and declared their wish to have a future with me. There were men who cupped my face and kissed every part of me. Yet I felt numb. I made sure I felt numb.

A million thoughts rush through my mind as I pace through my apartment. It is probably a courtesy message, saying thank you. But maybe you were also curious about what had become of me. Maybe you would ask if I was still in the city. Or you would tell me that you never wanted to hear from me again. I would rather the latter in all honesty because it would give me closure. We had never spoken after you broke my heart, and I wish we had. Even if it was harsh words, at least it would stop me wondering.

Should I even open the message?

It only takes me an hour to succumb to my temptations. As I expected you were courteous, wishing me well too, and stating “we had fun last year, it was a great little story.” An oxymoron.

It was your way of forgiving me and telling me to forget at the same time. An insignificance to you now.

It hurt for the conversation to not be deeper than pleasantries because I knew you were the kind of person who deserved better. But then again so was I. I deserved for every story I am in, to be better than great, or little. I deserve a million metaphors, similes and adjectives to shape my unruly character every time you thought of the love we once shared.

Because a girl like me does not love simply. It is chaotic, colourful and catastrophic; it’s more than great.

I’m glad that we spoke, because it is the end of me thinking about us and it will be the beginning of my baby steps into a world without you.