The Way You Forgot Her

The first time Elina saw Ray after the breakup, it felt like someone had ripped open a wound she had carefully stitched with silence.

They were in the same bookstore where they used to spend entire weekends pretending they were characters in novels they never read. Ray didn’t notice her at first. Or maybe he did, and chose not to. But Elina stood frozen between the aisles, staring at the boy who used to read poetry to her like each line was written from his chest.

Now, he was holding someone else's hand.

The girl laughed—softly, genuinely—and it echoed like Elina’s old laughter in that same corner.

It had only been eleven months. She still counted.

That night, she walked home slowly, letting the cold wind punish her. The lights were too bright. The people too happy. The world too unaware that two people could love each other with everything and still lose.

Elina sat by her window and pulled out the shoebox. The one labeled "Us."

Inside were concert stubs, dried flowers, crumpled love notes, and a photo booth strip where Ray kissed her cheek like he had found the entire universe in her skin.

She wondered if he still remembered that day. How they had skipped class. How it rained. How they danced anyway in the parking lot, soaked and smiling. But if he had remembered, he wouldn't have smiled like that at someone else.

Would he?

The hardest part wasn’t losing Ray.

It was knowing he’d kept going.

Without her.

While she still slept in his hoodie. Still scrolled past his name and flinched. Still searched for pieces of him in strangers who never stood a chance. Still played their song on lonely nights—pretending it meant something again.

Ray, on the other hand, had perfected the art of forgetting.

He no longer texted her during thunderstorms. He didn’t visit the beach where they carved their initials into wet sand. He had unfollowed her on everything, like she was just a phase. A season. A page turned too soon.

And he certainly didn’t cry while hearing their song—because Elina found out he had changed the playlist title from "Forever Us" to "Summer Vibes."

She should’ve been angry.

But anger requires energy.

And Elina was tired.

Tired of waiting for a text that would never come.

Tired of rehearsing conversations that would never happen.

Tired of loving someone who had stopped choosing her long before the end.

One morning, she did something radical.

She deleted his number.

No backups. No screenshots.

Just—gone.

That same evening, she walked past the same bookstore, this time without flinching. She even bought a book. A romance novel, ironically. One that didn’t end with a broken girl waiting on a ghost.

When the cashier smiled and said, “Good choice,” she didn’t think of Ray’s voice saying the same thing.

She thought only of herself.

And that felt like healing.

That night, she lit a candle—not for memories, not for grief—but for herself.

She went home and threw away the shoebox. Not in a dramatic, movie-like way. Just quietly. Like placing a memory to rest.

She started to write again. Not poems about him. Not letters to him.

But stories—about girls who healed. Who left. Who chose themselves over maybes and half-loves.

Because Elina had realized something:

You don’t need closure from someone who made a home in you and then moved out without a word.

You just need to close the door yourself.

And so she did.

There were still hard days. Nights where she reached for her phone instinctively. Songs that made her pause. Dreams that ended with his name like a whisper. But each time, the pain lessened. Not disappeared—but lessened.

She started journaling. Running. Laughing with friends she had pushed away when she was too consumed by him.

And in the quietest moment—when the sun streamed through her window and the coffee tasted just right—Elina smiled again.

It wasn’t the smile Ray once loved.

It was stronger.

Softer.

Earned.

Not for him. Not for anyone.

Just for her.