Page 173 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

I had already imagined a house with him. Trips. Ordinary mornings. Growing older together.

And the worst part? None of it was real.

Just hope.

Just potential.

Just me loving hard enough for two people.

By the end of October, Ormoc had become familiar enough to feel safe. And maybe that was exactly why I knew I couldn’t stay there forever.

Because safety wasn’t the same thing as healing.

Deep down, I knew I had only done one thing: I ran.

So eventually, I packed my things again and returned to Southside.

My city. My home.

The place that hurt me.

The pain started when I arrived.

I was in the backseat of the taxi from the airport, staring out the window while the city passed by in blurry fragments.

And suddenly… there.

That café where Victor once waited for me.

That street where we crossed while laughing about something I couldn’t even remember anymore.

The drag bar where I decided he was the one.

Memory after memory started appearing like ghosts attached to buildings, streets, and even pavements.

My chest tightened slowly.

And by the time I reached my apartment building, I already felt it happening again.

The spiral.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

Silence greeted me immediately. Not the peaceful kind, but the empty kind of silence.

I stood there for a while, staring at the place.

But it didn’t feel like home anymore.

It felt abandoned.

Haunted.

Like grief had been living there longer than I had.

And suddenly, every emotion I thought I had buried in Ormoc came rushing back all at once.

Everything.