I wasn't heartbroken anymore.
Not in the way people expect when you say you're not over someone.
There were no more sudden tears while waiting for the kettle to boil. No more standing still in the grocery aisle because a song reminded me of a night, I swore I'd already forgotten.
No more staring at the moon asking questions it would never answer.
That part — the collapsing, the craving, the craving to be craved — was over.
But I wasn't healed, either.
I was just… tired.
Not sleepy.
Tired in the way only a soul can be tired.
Tired of remembering gently.
Tired of holding space for something that would never return.
Tired of wondering if love like that ever truly ends, or if it simply learns to live inside you without permission.
Five years had passed since I walked away.
Five versions of myself.
Five women who cried and bloomed and disappeared and tried to rebuild without tracing her past in every mirror.
And now — I was back in the city I had once escaped.
Not to find him.
Not to fall apart.
But because I could finally walk its streets without bleeding.
The city had changed. But strangely, some corners still remembered me.
The café near the corner still had the same cracked tile I used to step around.
The bookstore where I once waited for him still smelled like dust and paper and old longing.
I passed the places we'd shared — not to punish myself — but to remember the girl who once believed in impossible things.
I didn't cry.
I didn't flinch.
I just nodded at the ghosts and kept walking.
Jace met me at the station when I arrived.
Same easy smile. Same worn hoodie. Same eyes that didn't try to read me too deeply.
"Ready?" he asked, taking my bag.
"For what?"
"For whatever comes next."
He didn't need an answer. He knew I didn't have one.
We drove in silence most of the way to my new place. The kind of silence that didn't need to be filled — the kind that said: I'm still here, even when you don't speak.
That night, he stayed a little longer than usual.
He helped unpack the boxes. Labeled the spice jars. Reached for my hand once as I stepped down from a chair.
I didn't pull away.
But I didn't hold on either.
There were nights when we'd talk for hours on the small balcony.
About nothing, mostly. The best kind of conversation.
"Do you think love ever really disappears?" I asked once.
Jace was quiet, staring at the dark sky.
"No," he said. "I think it changes shape. Sometimes it softens. Sometimes it hides."
"And sometimes?"
"Sometimes it stays. Just… quieter."
I looked at him, wondering how much he already knew — and how much he chose not to say.
Jace never asked about Elián.
Not directly.
But sometimes, when I zoned out in the middle of a good day… or when an old song caught me off guard… his gaze would linger just a little longer.
He knew.
And he stayed anyway.
One night, I dreamed of Elián again.
We weren't touching.
Just sitting across from each other in a wooden room that felt like a temple — quiet, sacred, suspended in time.
His Armor was beside him. His hands were bruised.
He looked at me like he was trying to memorize my face.
Like he was saying goodbye, even in the dream.
"I looked for you," he whispered.
"I know," I said. "I waited."
Silence hung between us like a final breath.
"But I can't anymore."
He nodded.
It was the kindest thing he ever gave me — permission to let go.
When I woke up, I wasn't crying.
Just still.
Like the dream had closed a door I didn't realize was still open.
The next morning, I joined Jace for breakfast.
He handed me coffee, quietly, then smiled as I buttered my toast too heavily — as always.
He didn't ask if I was okay.
He didn't need to.
He just sat across from me like he always did — with patience, with care, with no expectations.
And I thought:
Maybe this is how it happens.
Not with fireworks. Not with obsession.
But with presence.
With someone showing up — again and again — even when you don't ask them to.
I wasn't over Elián.
I never would be.
He lived in the fabric of who I had become — not haunting me but humming softly beneath everything.
A low, familiar song.
But I was no longer looking backward.
I was done hiding.
And for the first time in a long, long while…
I wanted to see what else love could be