The last time I saw him, we’d been in a fight—as usual. Fighting had almost become our love language, this chaotic push and pull that only we understood. We carved our love into jagged edges, each argument like a scrape across my heart that I couldn’t help but keep reopening. There was always something unsaid, words we buried under pride, stubbornness, and the fear of being too vulnerable. We weren’t good at loving each other gently. Maybe we weren’t good at loving each other at all.
It was Christmastime. I remember the air—it had a biting stillness, the kind that leaves your lungs stinging when you inhale. The frost sat heavy on windows, rooftops, and bare branches, like the world itself had paused and hardened. It matched the silence between us, that brittle quiet that always came after the storm.
I don’t remember how the fight started. I never do. Maybe it was something small that spiraled, or maybe it was the weight of everything unspoken. The truth is, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were speaking again—carefully. Like every word was perched on the edge of a cliff, daring one of us to send the whole thing tumbling down again.
And then, the text.
It buzzed on my phone like any other notification. Ordinary. But when I opened it, it wasn’t ordinary at all.
“I feel like you’ll love this song, that it’s one that if you could dedicate one to me, this would be it.”
Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
I stared at that message, my thumb hovering over the link. I could feel my heart picking up speed, that quiet ache creeping up through my ribs like it always did with him. I sat there for what felt like forever, phone in hand, because I already knew what the song would say. I think part of me didn’t want to hear it—didn’t want to feel it. Maybe I thought pressing play would make it real.
But I did it anyway.
The song started, and the first notes wrapped around me like a whisper, soft and haunting. And then the words hit:
“Wait… they don’t love you like I love you.
Wait… they don’t love you like I love you.”
It felt like he’d reached inside me and pulled out the truth I didn’t want to admit. Like he’d found the exact words to name us—what we were, what we couldn’t be, and what I couldn’t stop wanting.
The song played on, the words looping over and over, and somewhere in the second verse, I broke.
I was sitting at my desk in the middle of the workday. My office was filled with the hum of computers, the shuffle of papers, phones ringing—mundane noise that blurred together into nothing as the tears started falling. I dropped my head into my hands, silent sobs shaking through me.
There I was—surrounded by people who had no idea what I was carrying, no idea that my heart was breaking in the quiet way hearts do when no one’s looking. I cried like I hadn’t in a long time—not the loud, dramatic kind of crying, but the slow, painful kind that feels like it’s coming from a place deeper than you knew existed.
Because he was right.
If I could’ve chosen any song, it would’ve been that one.
“They don’t love you like I love you.”
The words pressed into me like a bruise, tender and unavoidable. They said everything I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud: that I loved him with a love that was broken but real. A love that made no sense but still felt truer than anything else I’d known.
The unbearable, beautiful truth of us was that we couldn’t make it work, but we couldn’t let go either. We were a mess of unfinished sentences, half-healed wounds, and tiny moments where everything felt like it might be okay. And this song—it felt like a confession neither of us were brave enough to make.
I wondered, as I sat there with tears streaking my face and my hands trembling, if he was listening to it too. If he was hearing the same words and feeling them the same way. If he’d sent me that song because he knew what it meant—because he felt it too.
Did it hurt him to send it? Did he hear it and think of me, the same way I was thinking of him?
For the rest of the day, the song echoed in my mind like a ghost. The words repeated until I could hardly stand it, but I couldn’t turn them off. I couldn’t let go of the truth they held.
“Wait… they don’t love you like I love you.”
That’s what he wanted me to know. That’s what he couldn’t say out loud.
I don’t think I ever listened to a song the same way again after that. Because that song was us—messy, unfinished, aching, and real.
And no matter what happened after, no matter how much time passed, the memory of that text, that song, and those words would always press into me, lingering like a scar I couldn’t quite heal.
Because he was right.
“They don’t love you like I love you.”
And no one else ever could.
A few days after Maps, there was another text. This time, about the car I was buying. Practical. Simple. But that’s how he always was—he could show up in the most ordinary ways, making it feel like everything was still okay when it wasn’t. I don’t know why I asked him to come, or why he said yes. Maybe he needed the excuse as much as I did.
When he got in the passenger seat, it felt like we’d stepped into some strange liminal space, suspended in time where neither of us had to say what we were really thinking. The car smelled faintly new, that sterile, clean scent, but his cologne—familiar, like a memory that wouldn’t let go—cut through it. I tried not to look at him directly, just kept my eyes on the road as I pulled out of the lot.
We drove through neighborhoods I couldn’t name, the streets a blur of dull winter trees and strings of Christmas lights half-heartedly draped across fences. The air in the car felt thick, like we were both trying to avoid the truth sitting between us. I wanted to talk. I wanted to ask him what we were doing here, what he was thinking, but I couldn’t bring myself to break the silence. It wasn’t just silence—it was ours, and somehow, that felt enough.
Every once in a while, I’d glance over at him. His hands rested loosely in his lap, fingers brushing against each other like he was trying to keep them still. He stared out the window, his face calm, but I could see it—the weight he carried in his jaw, the slight furrow in his brow that told me he was somewhere else entirely.
I don’t know why the quiet between us felt so heavy that day. Maybe because we both knew—this was it. We couldn’t say it, not out loud, but I felt it, deep in my chest. We’d done this too many times, orbiting closer and closer, only to burn ourselves out. This car ride, him beside me, felt like the soft goodbye we couldn’t bring ourselves to give.
Still, I wanted to freeze us there forever. I wanted to stretch that drive out until the gas ran out, until the light dimmed, until we had no choice but to stay right there together.
But it didn’t last. It never did.
We pulled back into my driveway, the hum of the engine disappearing too quickly as I turned the key. I wanted to sit there for a while longer, just to pretend nothing had changed. Instead, he opened the door and stepped out.
I watched him from the driver’s seat, my hands still gripping the wheel, too tight. He hesitated, just for a moment, like maybe he was waiting for me to say something—something to keep him there. I almost did. I almost asked him to come inside, to stay just a little longer, to give me something.
But I didn’t.
He said goodbye. And then he turned, shoved his hands into his pockets, and walked away.
I watched him disappear down the driveway, the sound of his footsteps on the pavement sinking into me like stones. I sat there, staring at the spot where he’d been, feeling like I’d swallowed every word I couldn’t say.
After that, silence.
Calls went unanswered. Texts stayed on read. I told myself he’d get back to me soon, that he was just being him—quiet, distant, but still there. Days passed, though, and that silence turned sharp, cutting into me in ways I couldn’t ignore.
The Last Time I Saw Him
And then Christmas Day came.
Jaden was at his dad’s house, and I was alone. Alone in a way that felt physical, like the air itself was pressing down on me, wrapping around my chest and holding me still. My house had never been so quiet. The hum of the heater sounded like a distant murmur, and every creak of the floorboards beneath me was a ghost whispering all the things I didn’t want to hear. He’s not coming back. You’re alone. You’ve always been alone.
I tried to sit with it—tried to distract myself, tried to breathe—but every room in that house felt haunted. I wandered from one to the other, my fingers grazing counters, doorknobs, walls—looking for something. Some trace of him, of us, of what used to be. I wanted the silence to break, for my phone to light up, for a knock on the door. I wanted him to pull me back into his orbit like he always did.
But nothing came. The hours dragged by, slow and relentless, empty as the space he used to fill.
Finally, I grabbed my keys and left. I didn’t know where I was going, but sitting there, drowning in the quiet, felt unbearable. The car—the one he’d helped me pick—sat waiting in the driveway. I slid into the driver’s seat, and for a moment, it felt like I wasn’t alone. Like he was still there, ghosted into the space beside me. His scent lingered in my mind, faint and familiar, even though I knew it wasn’t real.
I drove without thinking, my hands on the wheel but my heart steering. I had no destination, but my body already knew where I was going. I told myself I wasn’t being desperate. I told myself I wasn’t trying to chase him down or beg for something that was already gone. I was just… going.
But I was lying to myself. I was going to him.
When I pulled up to his house, I sat there in the dark, staring at the porch light glowing against the cold. My breath fogged up the windows, and I wiped them clear with my sleeve, trying to see. For a moment, I let myself believe. I let myself hope.
Maybe he’d see me. Maybe he’d open the door, his face surprised, softening into the smile I used to know. Maybe he’d tell me he was sorry, that the silence was a mistake, that he’d been thinking about me as much as I’d been thinking about him.
Maybe.
I got out of the car. My boots crunched against the gravel of the driveway. The air was sharp, biting at my skin, but I hardly noticed. All I could hear was my own heartbeat, thudding loud in my ears as I walked to his door.
And then I stopped.
Laughter.
It froze me where I stood. At first, I thought I imagined it. I held my breath, straining to listen, and there it was again: the sound of glasses clinking, voices rising and falling in easy conversation. People. Celebration.
And then her.
A woman’s laugh.
It was soft at first, blending into the hum of everything else. But then it rose, clear and bright, cutting through the air like it belonged there. Like she belonged there.
It wasn’t his mom.
And it wasn’t me.
The sound of it split me open, sharp and sudden, like something inside me had snapped. I stood there, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat, unable to move. The cold wrapped around me, but it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver.
I hovered there, my hand close to the door. I almost knocked. I almost forced myself inside, demanded to see him, demanded to know why. Why hadn’t he answered my calls? My texts? Why was she here, laughing, like she’d always belonged?
But I didn’t.
Because I already knew.
I turned around, my legs heavy, my body numb. I walked back to the car, but it didn’t feel like walking—it felt like sinking. Like I was being pulled under by the weight of it all.
I sat in the driver’s seat, staring at his house, the porch light glowing soft and warm against the dark. That light felt cruel, like it was mocking me. Everything inside that house went on without me, indifferent to the fact that I was outside, shattering.
I stayed there for what felt like hours, my hands in my lap, my breath clouding up the windows. I listened to nothing but my own breathing and the faint echoes of her laughter—laughter that didn’t belong to me.
Eventually, I started the car and drove away.
The drive home felt endless. My tears started as a slow, silent trickle, but then they became something louder, more uncontrollable. I gripped the wheel hard, my knuckles pale against the leather, but I couldn’t stop the sobs that shook through me.
And in my head, the song played again.
“Wait… they don’t love you like I love you.
Wait… they don’t love you like I love you.”
The words repeated over and over, taunting me, reminding me of what I already knew but couldn’t bear to accept.
I cried the whole way home. My sobs echoed in the small, empty space of the car, but they weren’t loud enough to drown out the song or her laughter, still ringing in my ears.
I wish I could say that was the moment I let him go. That I left everything on that doorstep with her voice echoing through me. But I didn’t.
Because love like that doesn’t disappear in a single moment.
It stays. It lingers.
It clings to the memory of his voice in the passenger seat, to the silence that stretched between us in the days that followed. It sits in the empty space where he used to be, where we used to be. And it plays, again and again, in the song I can’t unhear.
The last time I saw him was tangled in all of that—the fights, the tenderness, the quiet drive, and the Christmas air.
And I still remember his text.
“They don’t love you like I love you.”
Some loves, no matter how broken, stay with you forever.
