For months, I thought all I needed was one more conversation.
One more chance to ask why. One more shot to prove I could be the version of myself he might want. One more perfectly worded text that would finally make him feel everything I had been feeling. But closure didn’t come from a reply. It came from not sending the text at all.
The thing is, I wrote dozens of messages in my notes app that I wanted to send to him but knew I never would. They started off saying things like what could I have done differently? and why wasn’t I enough? Questions that made it feel like maybe there was still something I could fix. Over time, those questions turned into apologies. For being too much, not enough, saying the wrong thing, wanting it too badly. I imagined he’d respond with something gentle like it wasn’t you, it was me and I’d finally be able to breathe again.
I clung to this fantasy of resolution until one day I saw a photo of him with his arm around another girl. How was this possible? I thought I’d unfollowed every single one of his friends. I guess I missed one. I screenshotted the story, zoomed in, and studied it until I made myself sick. Then I called my sister, crying, asking over and over again: why her and not me? what does she have that I don’t?
Because even though he said it wasn’t you, that photo screamed: IT WAS!!
It was me. I wasn’t enough. I’m not lovable. I’ll never be good enough for the real thing.
In the moment, I would’ve done anything to rewrite the ending. I kept telling myself that if I could just say the right thing, ask the right question, explain myself better, apologize for whatever made me unworthy then maybe I could change it. That’s the trick your brain plays on you when you don’t get closure: it convinces you there’s still a version of the story where you win. Where they realize what they lost. Where they come back.
So I kept writing texts I’d never send. Practicing the final scene in my head like it was a movie where I was saying everything perfectly and he was finally understanding. I wanted the last word to feel like a release. I wanted the silence to break. Instead the silence stayed and eventually, I stopped trying to fill it.
We grow up believing closure is a moment. A conversation. A cinematic ending that makes all the mess make sense. We want the sidewalk speech, the parked-car confession, the late-night phone call that untangles everything and gives us permission to move on.
We think that closure is something someone else is supposed to give us. That it’s owed. That it arrives like a package if we just wait long enough or ask nicely enough or suffer quietly enough.
The hard truth is most endings don’t work like that.
Sometimes, there’s no real ending at all. Instead it just fades to nothing. The calls stop. The texts don’t come. And the version of them that existed in your mind slowly drifts away, too. You don’t even notice at first. You’re too busy rehearsing what you would say if they did reach out. Too busy watching their stories, hoping they’re watching yours.
That’s what made it so hard. I didn’t want him back, not really. I just wanted the story to end differently. I wanted to be chosen. I wanted to be the one who got the apology, the regret, the you were right, I just wasn’t ready. I didn’t want revenge. I wanted recognition. I wanted to feel like I mattered.
But he didn’t give me that. And over time, I stopped needing him to.
Healing didn’t happen the way I thought it would. It wasn’t one big moment—it was a million tiny ones. Staying off his page. Getting through a dinner with friends without bringing him up. Crying on the bathroom floor, then brushing my teeth anyway. Telling the story so many times I started getting bored of hearing myself say it. I thought healing would feel bigger. Like some grand realization or life-altering moment. But really it was quiet, slow and a little lonely if I’m being honest.
Somewhere in the middle of all that I stopped writing the messages. Stopped needing to send the text. I didn’t need him to read it. I didn’t even need him to know how much it once mattered. Because, somehow, it just didn’t anymore.
Closure didn’t show up in the way I expected.
It wasn’t a conversation. It was choosing not to have one. It was saying less. Letting it end. And realizing I didn’t need his reply to move on—I just needed to stop waiting for it.
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