Someone new

When I got his text about the possibility of meeting, I was not surprised. I knew I had manifested it through the tears released under the thick duvet that kept me pressed into my mattress for months. Once, it was the two of us under damp sheets. The ache for you, your touch, your voice, the inside of your mouth tasting like dew, like wine, like sin, like you. Over time, that special part of you became my phantom limb, your body, a mist of tiny pin pricks nibbling at my skin. I held on to the thought of you as long as I could.

When we met at our breakfast spot, I let my lips touch the stubble on your cheek, trying to remember. I could see the nervousness in your eyes, and I knew what you were going to say:

I want to start again.

No one told me how, when someone breaks up with you, you also break up with a version of yourself. That you don’t really heal but unfurl. I held your hand because I wanted to be kind. I had already become someone new.

I have no regrets.