My back hit the wall as I clutched my phone, staring at the cracked screen like it held all my failures.
I was so tired—bone-deep, soul-crushing tired. Everything in my life felt like a bad joke lately. The kind where you’re the punchline, and everyone else is laughing except you.
The image of my ex-boyfriend flashed in my mind, uninvited and unwelcome, as it always did. His betrayal still lingered like a dull ache, a wound that refused to heal no matter how much I tried to ignore it. I spent my days carefully sidestepping even the smallest thought of him, but it never worked. He was always there—lurking in the recesses of my mind like a shadow I couldn’t outrun, waiting to remind me of everything I wanted to forget.
I kept asking myself the same question over and over: Why? Why did h
