Chapter 5 : The Girl Who Used to Write Love Letters

The girl who used to write love letters in her head now wrote nothing.

Not because there was nothing to say, but because everything she wanted to say felt too heavy to put into words.

My journal used to be my safe place, a space where I could pour out all the things I was too scared to say out loud. But now?

Now, the pages were filled with unfinished sentences and apologies I never got to send. Thoughts I couldn't bring myself to complete. Letters addressed to someone who stopped reading long ago.

And maybe that's what broke me the most-not that he left, but that he left without looking back.

At that point, I wasn't just heartbroken-I was lost to myself.

I barely recognized the girl in the mirror. Her eyes were tired, her voice quieter, her smile gone like it had been packed in his suitcase and taken with him.

I lay awake most nights, staring at the ceiling with a hundred thoughts battling in my chest. They never screamed, no. They whispered. Loud enough to keep me up, soft enough to pretend I was okay.

Some nights I would cry without making a sound. Other nights I would just lie there, frozen, numb, like I had disappeared from the inside out.

Maybe love wasn't meant for girls like me...

The quiet ones.

The ones who love with their whole heart, even when it's bruised.

The ones who give and give and give, hoping love will notice them standing there with open arms and shaky hands.

The ones who believe in forever until it's ripped out of their mouth mid-sentence.

Maybe girls like me are meant to feel everything and get nothing in return.

There were moments I still replayed in my head like they were sacred scriptures-

The way he used to look at me when we first met, like I was something rare.

The soft midnight texts that felt like warm blankets on cold days.

The stupid inside jokes we used to laugh about until our stomachs ached.

For a while, those moments felt like home.

But somewhere along the way, those memories stopped feeling like comfort and started feeling like lies I was foolish enough to believe in.

Was it ever real? Or was I just the placeholder until he found something easier to love?

I don't know.

What I do know is this: when he left, he didn't just take his presence. He took pieces of me too.

He took my laughter.

He took my trust.

He took the softness I wore so proudly-the part of me that used to believe love was a safe place.

I became hard in places that used to be gentle. I stopped sending long texts. I stopped explaining how I felt.

Not because I didn't care, but because I was tired of feeling like my emotions were too loud for someone who had already tuned me out.

I stopped hoping he'd come back.

But the truth is, even in his absence, he lingered.

In my playlists.

In my coffee order.

In the way I flinched when someone else tried to love me.

This kind of heartbreak didn't announce itself with screaming or shattered plates.

It was quieter than that.

It hurt in a way that made you question yourself.

It crept in at random moments-in the middle of a conversation, a song, a scent-and reminded you that you were no longer the girl he once chose.

I started measuring my days in emotional weight.

Good days were the ones I didn't cry.

Better days were the ones I didn't think about him.

And the best days?

Those were the ones I remembered who I used to be before love taught me how to disappear.

I missed that girl.

The one who danced in front of mirrors.

The one who laughed too loudly and dreamed without limits.

The one who believed she was worthy of something soft and lasting.

The one who wrote love letters in her head and believed in forever.

Now?

Now I just wanted to feel like myself again.

Not the version of me who was left behind, but the version of me who hadn't yet been taught that love could be careless.

Healing didn't look how I thought it would.

It wasn't a straight line or a poetic rise from ashes.

It was messy.

It was relapsing into memories I swore I had outgrown.

It was pretending I was over it when I wasn't.

It was learning to sit with the silence without letting it swallow me whole.

There were days I still hated him.

And days I missed him so much it physically hurt.

And somewhere in between those extremes, I started rebuilding.

Tiny steps.

Like waking up without checking his socials.

Like writing something that didn't include his name.

Like letting someone hug me and not flinch.

Maybe this is what growth looks like.

Maybe it's not forgetting the person who hurt you-but forgiving yourself for giving them so much of you.

Maybe it's not about closure, but about learning to live without the ending you hoped for.

And maybe, just maybe, that's enough.

Because the girl who once wrote love letters in her head still exists.

She's just learning to write them to herself now.

But learning to love myself again wasn't easy.

Some mornings I woke up and stared at the ceiling for hours, not because I was lazy-but because the weight of existing felt too much. Brushing my teeth felt like a chore. Leaving my bed felt like betrayal.

Grief clung to my body like a second skin. I wasn't just grieving him. I was grieving the version of me who believed in magic.

The version who looked at her reflection and felt beautiful. The one who texted paragraphs without fear of being ignored. The one who used to hum love songs in the shower without choking on the lyrics.

I remember one rainy afternoon, I found one of our old photos tucked inside the back of a book. It wasn't even a special picture-just the two of us at a cafe, sunlight in our eyes, half-smiles on our faces.

But looking at it made my chest tighten. Because I could still remember how that moment felt. How I thought we were forever. How I thought I was enough.

I sat there on my bedroom floor, holding that photo like it was some sacred artifact from a life I barely remembered living. And I cried.

Not for him-but for me.

The me in that picture didn't know what was coming.

She didn't know she'd spend months untangling herself from someone who stopped loving her silently.

She didn't know she'd stop recognizing her own laugh.

Healing has this quiet cruelty.

It shows you every way you lost yourself in someone else.

It forces you to sit with the ghosts of who you were, to walk through the ashes of who you thought you'd become.

But it also gives you the gift of becoming again.

So slowly, I began to rebuild.

I started going on solo walks, headphones in, hands in my pockets, heart guarded but present.

I learned to take myself out for coffee-at first it felt awkward, like I was filling a chair that used to be his.

But over time, I started enjoying the solitude.

It no longer screamed loneliness. It started to feel like peace.

I picked up books again.

I started reading poetry, and I found fragments of myself hidden between the lines of other people's heartbreaks.

Words became my therapy-words I didn't always write, but words I needed.

Eventually, I started journaling again. Not about him. Not about the pain. But about me.

About how the sun felt on my skin that day.

About how I made it through without crying.

About how I was still here, even when everything inside me had once wanted to disappear.

I stopped measuring my worth by who chose me.

I stopped apologizing for feeling deeply, for caring too much, for loving in a world that treats detachment like strength.

Because the truth is-my softness is not a flaw.

It's my power.

Girls like me? We don't just survive heartbreak. We rise from it with gold in our cracks.

We carry love in our scars, and somehow, we still believe in new beginnings.

Even when the old endings still sting.

So yes, the girl who used to write love letters still exists.

She's different now.

Wiser.

Quieter, maybe.

But still full of love.

Only now, she writes to herself first.