The plane roared skyward, California's glittering nightscape spread out below the window, only to be swallowed up in seconds by thick, heavy clouds.
I'd once burned with the desire to sink my roots into this glitzy city, to breathe the same air and share the same sky as that man I loved.
Now, as I left it all behind, it felt like a huge chunk had been carved right out of my chest.
It wasn't the soul-crushing agony I'd expected, though, just a numb, hollow emptiness.
Three hours in the air, and I didn't shed a single tear. I just drifted off into a dazed, fitful sleep.
My dreams were a jumbled mess of every sweet little moment from those five years, tangled up over and over with the frigid, brutal reality of my month in California.
I'd kept my phone in airplane mode the whole flight,
