When Goodbye Wasn’t My Choice

When Goodbye Wasn’t My Choice

By Ali Asad Ullah

I never thought I’d write about this.

Mostly because I was hoping—somehow—it would stop hurting. That one day I’d wake up and the weight in my chest would be gone, the questions would stop echoing, and the silence would feel normal. But even after all this time, it doesn’t.

Some stories don’t end the way they’re supposed to.

Some never end at all.

This one didn’t.

Because goodbye wasn’t my choice.

The Beginning of the End (That I Didn't See Coming)

We were in a good place—or so I thought.

Not perfect, of course. No relationship is.

But we had our rhythms: late-night phone calls, spontaneous road trips, morning texts that made the day feel lighter.

We weren’t just lovers—we were friends. Partners.

Home to each other in a world that often felt so cold.

But looking back now, I realize the unraveling had already begun.

Not in fights or shouting matches—but in the quiet.

The “I love yous” that came a second late.

The jokes that didn’t land the same.

The growing silence between texts.

Still, I didn’t imagine it would end.

Not completely.

Not like this.

The Vanishing

One evening, we talked about dinner plans.

By morning, they were gone.

Not physically vanished into thin air, but emotionally, mentally—disconnected.

No warning.

No explanation.

Just a shift.

First, a day without response.

Then two.

Then a week.

I texted again. Called. Emailed. Even sent a letter—an actual letter—hoping the tangible words might matter more.

Nothing.

No “I need space.”

No “This isn’t working.”

No “I’m sorry.”

Just... silence.

A suffocating, cold, echoing silence.

I kept rereading our last messages, trying to find the sentence that might have pushed them away.

There wasn’t one.

And that’s what made it worse.

Losing Someone Who's Still Alive

You never really understand how painful it is to be left behind until it happens without a single goodbye.

When someone dies, there’s grief. People show up. They say sorry. There’s a funeral, closure, something—a ritual to mark the end.

But when someone walks out of your life without a word, it’s like bleeding from a wound you can’t see.

You start to wonder:

Did I do something wrong?

Was I not enough?

Did they ever even love me at all?

Every unanswered question becomes a blade you learn to live with.

And the worst part?

They’re still alive.

Posting, laughing, living—without you.

While you’re stuck in the story you didn’t know had ended.

Friends Said "Move On"

People around me tried to help.

“You deserve better.”

“They’re just a coward.”

“Time heals everything.”

“Maybe they just didn’t know how to say goodbye.”

And maybe that’s true.

But sometimes, logic doesn’t soothe heartbreak.

Because when you love someone deeply, you don’t want better—you want them.

You don’t care if they left wrong—you just want them to come back and explain why.

But they didn’t.

And I stopped waiting for them to.

The Lingering Grief

There’s a strange type of grief that comes from a disappearing person.

It doesn’t roar—it whispers.

It lives in moments.

In the song they loved that plays when you’re alone in the car.

In the restaurant where you both laughed until your stomachs hurt.

In the quiet of your bedroom where their memory curls up beside you like a ghost that refuses to leave.

There are days I still think about what I’d say if they ever walked back in.

Part of me imagines I’d be angry.

Demand answers.

Ask them how they could just disappear from someone’s life without a single word.

But another part of me…

The real part—the one still stitched to the love we shared—

would probably just say:

“Why?”

The Healing I Didn't Want

Healing didn’t come the way I imagined.

It wasn’t some glorious sunrise or a single day where everything felt okay.

It came in moments:

When I finally deleted their number.

When I stopped checking their profile.

When I walked into our favorite café and didn’t look for their face in the crowd.

The healing was slow, messy, and often invisible.

But it came.

Not because they came back.

Not because I got closure.

But because eventually, I chose to stop defining my worth by someone who left me in silence.

If You're Reading This, and It Happened to You Too

Let me tell you something I wish someone had told me:

You didn’t deserve the silence.

You didn’t deserve to be left wondering.

The way they left says more about them than it ever could about you.

And yes, you may never get the apology.

You may never hear “I’m sorry” or “I was scared” or “I wasn’t ready.”

You may never get the closure.

But you can still have peace.

Because you are allowed to move forward.

To breathe again.

To rebuild without needing a final chapter.

The Goodbye I Never Got to Say

So here it is.

The goodbye that was never mine to give:

I loved you. I really did.

And for a while, I believed you loved me too.

But you left, and you didn’t even tell me why.

You took something with you that I didn’t agree to give—

my sense of being enough.

But I’m taking it back now.

Goodbye.

Not for you—

For me.