CHAPTER FIVE — Missing, Learning, Healing

The weeks after I let him go didn’t feel like freedom.

They felt like waking up in a quiet house after a storm—the kind of quiet that isn’t peace, just the vast, heavy absence of noise. The silence was unsettling, a hollow space where Kaden’s consuming presence used to be. It was the deepest quiet I had ever known, and it was terrifying.

I didn’t fall apart dramatically. There was no theatrical breakdown, no tears soaking my pillow every night. My heartbreak was quieter than that, softer, more hollow—like someone had carved out a space inside my chest and left me alone to figure out what belonged there now.

What surprised me most was how much I missed him.

Not the chaos. Not the lies. Not the final, brutal exchange. I missed the pure, sweet potential of the early days: the excitement, the magnetic pull, the feeling of anticipation when his name flashed on my screen. I missed the illusion that he was the solution to my instability. Missing someone is painful, but missing the idea of what they were—the perfect version before everything fell apart? That ache settles deeper.

I found myself checking his socials sometimes—a brief, obsessive touch of something hot. Just enough to sting. I hated myself for caring. Felt embarrassed. Felt stupid. Felt young.

Healing forced me to face something I didn’t want to admit:

I was drawn to the chaos. Not because I actively desired pain, but because chaos was the only language of love I was fluent in. Growing up, love wasn’t soft. It wasn’t calm. It wasn’t steady. My parents loved loud, fought loud, broke loud. Their love was something you survived—not something that held you gently. So when my relationship with Kaden became loud and messy, a part of me didn’t run. A part of me recognized the storm and mistakenly called it passion; I stayed because the high-stakes volatility felt like home in the only way I knew home to be.

Healing was realizing I had misidentified passion. Healing was finally understanding I deserved something different than the drama I had survived for years.

The first hint of this true shift came in a small, ridiculous moment. Maybe three weeks after the breakup, I was with a cousin when something stupid happened, and a real, unrestrained laugh slipped out before I could stop it. We both froze, surprised by the sound. It was small. Barely anything. But it was the first spontaneous moment that didn't feel heavy. The first moment I thought, Maybe I’m going to be okay.

Healing didn’t happen all at once. It came in tedious, quiet shifts: eating a meal without the knot in my stomach. Falling asleep without the ghost of a tear on my cheek. Walking through school and hearing his name without feeling sick. Seeing a memory of us and not drowning in the bitterness. Recognizing that his failure was his own, and not a reflection of my worth.

Slowly, I started recognizing the girl I had buried under trying to fix everything. And as she re-emerged, I learned the critical lessons not from a self-help book, but from the raw, exposed nerves of my own heart: I learned that true loyalty requires mutual respect, not constant forgiveness. I learned that loving someone and outgrowing them can happen at the very same time. Most importantly, I learned that walking away is sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself, even when your heart screams for you to stay.

He wasn’t my forever. He wasn’t supposed to be. But he was an essential, painful teacher. He was the first time my heart opened all the way, and the first time it broke.

Healing from him gave me a strength I didn't know I had. The girl walking out of that year wasn’t the same girl who walked into it. She was carrying new weather inside her—clearer skies in some places, sharper storms in others, and a map she was only beginning to draw.

But a deep wound doesn't just need time; it needs to be closed. I had survived the storm, but I hadn't truly healed the self-worth that had invited it in the first place. I had a gaping vulnerability where my confidence used to be. I was standing on my own two feet, but I was still leaning.

I was ready for the next person to walk into my life, whoever they might be. The only problem was, I still didn't trust softness. I was expecting drama, searching for the fire, and completely unprepared for the quiet hand of the past to reach out and offer me a second chance.

A new chapter was moving toward me, shaping itself in the distance. The universe was about to offer me the peace I claimed I wanted, testing whether I had truly learned how to choose it.