Chapter Two: It Don't Cut Like It Used To
1042 Words
Chapter Two: It Don't Cut Like It Used To
"I built walls so high, even God knocks first.
And you? You don't even have a key."
"I outgrew the version of me that cried for people who couldn't show up.
I buried her.
Now all that's left is a girl who doesn't flinch at the sound of goodbye."
I remember when your silence used to scream. It didn't come empty. It came with this cold weight that wrapped around my ribs and wouldn't let me breathe right. When your phone stopped lighting up with my name, I waited. Every second felt like I was choking on hope—and it cut. Sharp and deep.
But now? Now I hear the silence and it don't sound like pain. It sounds like peace.
I think I became immune to you. Like your absence stopped being this big gaping hole and turned into just... space. Air. Nothing that needed filling.
You used to be everything. The first thing I checked for in the morning. The last thought before I drifted into sleep that didn't feel safe. I mapped my world around you like you were the sun—until I realized you were just fog dressed in sunlight. Temporary. Disappearing the second things got warm.
And I stayed. Over and over, I stayed.
I stayed when I should've ran. I stayed when I felt it breaking, when the glass was already cracking under my feet. Because maybe if I loved you hard enough, you'd finally see me. Finally choose me. Finally say, "I'm here. I mean it. I won't leave."
But you never did.
And that version of me? The girl who waited? I buried her.
She deserved more. She begged for more. And all she got was empty nights, half-hearted apologies, and words that sounded pretty but meant nothing. She cried into pillows and lied to her friends and said she was "fine," even when her throat burned from swallowing her voice.
But she's gone now.
What remains is a girl with dry eyes and a spine made of everything she had to hold together alone. You taught her how to stand up without help. How to walk away without looking back. You taught her to trust silence more than promises.
You were the lesson. Not the love.
I don't even think about you the same anymore. When your name shows up in a conversation, it doesn't pull at me. It just... floats there. Like background noise. Like an old song I don't listen to anymore because I know the lyrics too well and none of them make sense now.
There was a time I would've sworn you were irreplaceable. That I wouldn't survive without your voice, your texts, your presence. That losing you would feel like dying.
But baby, I lived.
And not just lived—I bloomed. Without your validation. Without your attention. Without begging. Without waiting for crumbs you called affection.
Do you know how freeing it is to walk past the place where you once destroyed me... and not feel a thing?
No ache. No bitterness. No need to prove anything.
Just... nothing.
And nothing, after everything you put me through, is the best gift you never meant to give me.
I hear people say, "You were so strong to stay through that."
But I wasn't strong then. Staying wasn't strength. It was fear. It was trauma dressed as loyalty. It was desperation. It was that little girl in me still begging someone to stay. Still thinking she had to earn love. That if she just did more, became more, smiled more, then maybe she'd be enough.
But the truth is—if someone makes you feel like you're hard to love, they are not your person. And I spent too long twisting myself into shapes that made it easier for you to ignore me.
You didn't love me. You loved how I loved you. You loved being chased. Loved being chosen, without ever having to choose back.
But that chase is over.
There is no more of me to beg with. No more poems to write in your name. No more tears to offer for your silence.
You're not the villain. You're not the hero either. You were just a chapter I had to survive to find myself.
And now? I'm not scared of goodbye. I greet it like an old friend.
Because I know I'm better off without the weight of love that never loved me back.
I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, phone in hand, waiting for you to text. Just one little bubble. Just one "hey." Something to remind me that I mattered.
I waited hours. Then days.
My chest ached in ways I didn't even have names for.
I used to confuse that ache with love. Now I know better. That was grief. Grieving the version of you I made up in my head. Grieving the version of me who still believed you cared.
I buried her next to every unanswered message. Next to every "I'm sorry" that came too late. Next to the nights I prayed for you to care.
She's gone. And thank God she is.
Because now I don't beg. Now I don't hope. Now I know what I deserve.
And you? You never had the capacity to give it.
Sometimes people ask, "If you could go back, would you do it again?"
And I say yes.
Not because you were worth it. But because I needed to break that deeply to rebuild this beautifully.
You don't get to touch this version of me. You don't get to show up now that the glow-up is real and say, "I miss you."
Of course you miss me.
Everyone misses the girl who gave without conditions. But I'm not her anymore.
I gave her a funeral. I lit a candle. And I walked away.
So when you think of me, let it sting a little. Let it burn that you had someone so rare and made her feel disposable.
Because she made it.
She clawed her way out of the wreckage you left behind. And now? She's everything you couldn't handle.
And then some.
[End of Chapter Two]
- Writer
