Chasing After My-Ex

Chapter 3

Emily had never known silence could be so loud.

The emptiness of her new one-room apartment in San Francisco echoed with every step she took as she looked around the place. The walls were bare and the few windows barely let in sunlight from outside. Then the mattress on the floor creaked every time she shifted. But for the first time in years, Emily felt something she hadn’t expected.

Freedom.

This freedom wasn’t the glamorous kind that was tied up in champagne bubbles and designer dresses. It wasn’t the kind that came with a view from the penthouse balcony or the weight of a diamond necklace pressing against her collarbone. Nothing like that. Rather, it was the kind that looked like a blank slate, terrifying in its emptiness but exhilarating in its potential.

The moment she’d landed in San Francisco this morning while dragging two suitcases and what was left of her pride, she knew there was no going back. No crawling, no begging, no second chances for Matt Forrest.

The man who had humiliated her in front of a crowd, handed her a check like she was disposable and laughed with his friends afterward, was dead to her now.

Her phone—a scratched, secondhand thing she’d picked up after dumping the sleek device Matt had gifted her—buzzed on the bare kitchen counter. Claire Dalton’s name lit up the screen when she glanced at it. Emily smiled. Claire was her childhood best friend who lived in San Francisco and was the very reason Emily hadn’t completely fallen apart. The minute she had called her and told her everything that had happened with Matt while concluding with the fact that she wanted to leave Los Angeles, her friend had started to look for a place for her.

“Still alive?” Claire was now saying in a light tone.

“Barely,” Emily muttered as she twisted the blinds open to let in a sliver of sunlight. The view wasn’t much—a brick wall and a fire escape—but it was hers. She was grateful for that.

“San Francisco treating you like the golden city it’s supposed to be?”

Emily laughed softly as she sank onto the mattress. “If by golden you mean overpriced coffee and a three-hour job search marathon then sure.”

“You’re building something, Em,” Claire said, her tone now serious. “And you’re not doing it alone. Never forget that.”

Emily smiled at those words even as warmth spread through her chest. “Thanks, Claire.”

After they hung up, she opened her laptop—a clunky model that hummed loudly every time it powered on—and dove back into her projects.

Freelance graphic design wasn’t just her career now; it was her lifeline.

***

Emily took on every job she could find, from designing logos for tech startups to creating menus for local restaurants.

It wasn’t easy. Most nights, she fell asleep with her laptop balanced on her knees and woke up just like that with the sun streaming through the flimsy curtains. Her hands ached from hours spent sketching on her tablet and her inbox was a battlefield of revisions and last-minute requests. Some nights, she would go to bed without food in her stomach because she was too busy to cook or order a takeout.

But Emily thrived in the chaos. She needed to thrive in the chaos.

So she didn't care. As long as she was making progress, she didn't care at all. Besides, she liked that she worked so hard. Since she wasn't idle, she didn't have time to be desperate to have Matt by her side. She didn't have the urge to humiliate herself by going to beg him to have her back.

Such yearnings would only be in her dreams when she was asleep. When she woke up, they were forgotten because she had to work.

Two weeks into her new life, she caught the attention of Samantha “Sam” Perez, a sharp-eyed creative director who ran a boutique design agency in the bustling parts of San Francisco.

Their first meeting happened by chance—Sam had overheard Emily discussing design concepts with a café owner during a lunch break that she rarely took. She had become more interested in Emily every passing second as she spoke and by the time the former was done, she was hooked.

“You’ve got guts,” Sam had said as she handed over her card. “And talent. Call me if you’re serious about this.”

Emily had called the next day.

Now, under Sam’s mentorship, Emily found herself taking on projects that pushed her beyond her comfort zone. Website overhauls, branding for luxury brands…this was work she’d once thought was out of her league but now she was doing it. Sam was demanding but fair, and her belief in Emily’s potential was like a lifesaver that she clung to like a drowning woman.

One evening, as Emily wrapped up a logo design for a high-profile tech client, she leaned back in her chair and glanced around her apartment. The walls were still bare, the mattress was still on the floor but the space felt different.

It felt alive.

Her phone buzzed again. This time, it wasn’t Claire but a notification from a social media app she rarely opened these days. Against her better judgment, she tapped it and found herself staring at a photo.

And she froze.

It was Matt. He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, with his arm draped around Lila Carter. The caption read: Celebrating love and success.

Emily’s stomach clenched and her breathing became rapid as her thoughts flashed back to the most humiliating moment of her life that had happened a few weeks ago.

Calm down, Em. You have done it. Even when it seemed you couldn't, you have left that bastard and you are not going back. You are building something solid now and it is on your terms. So calm down.

She said this to herself over and over again in her mind before she was able to calm down and come back to her normal self. Then she swiped the app closed and got back to work.

As she clicked “send” on her latest project submission am leaned back in her working chair to relax a moment: a thought crossed her mind, sharp and clear:

She wasn’t the woman who begged to be loved again and again. She wasn't the woman who tore up a check and walked out and was expected to come back.

She was the woman who stayed gone.