Matteo was never going to be my partner.
And somewhere, I always knew that.
But I wanted him to be.
Not because of who he was—
But because of what he offered:
A pause button.
A movie scene I could step into.
A version of life where I didn't have to be me.
That's the truth I hadn't wanted to say out loud.
I didn't want love.
I wanted relief.
I wanted someone who didn't know about my to-do lists, my therapy notes, my "strong friend" reputation.
Someone who didn't care about performance reviews or emotional labor or whether I'd cried in the bathroom stall that morning before presenting quarterly goals.
I wanted someone who saw me and said,
"You don't have to earn softness here."
But that wasn't love.
It was escape.
And Matteo?
He was my escape hatch.
My passport.
My fantasy made flesh.
He arrived just when I needed the illusion most.
When my life looked full on the outside but felt hollow at the center.
When I was tired of being the woman who had it all together—tired of doing the "work," tired of always being emotionally fluent.
That's why it hurt so much—because it had almost worked.
He gave me permission to be present.
To feel.
To exist without narrative.
We never talked about labels.
Never planned a future.
Never asked "What are we?"
And for once, I didn't need to know.
I only needed to feel like I wasn't drowning in my own life.
But when he left, I was left with everything I hadn't healed.
All the ache. All the noise.
All the questions I'd buried beneath his touch.
Now, weeks later, I wake up in my own bed.
The mornings are quieter.
The coffee is less poetic.
The mirror more honest.
I'm not glowing.
I'm not "evolved."
I'm not someone who turned heartbreak into a TED Talk.
I'm just here.
Still.
Present.
Sometimes I scroll through the photos.
Not to relive it—just to remember I was capable of joy that wasn't productive.
I see myself barefoot on cobblestones, laughing with my eyes closed, eating gelato at midnight, my lips sticky with sweetness and the recklessness of summer.
There was a photo he took of me on the rooftop—Florence behind me, city lights flickering like fireflies.
I wasn't posing. I was just… being.
I think that was his gift.
Not love.
Not partnership.
But a reminder:
I don't have to keep earning rest.
Or burying desire.
Or pretending I only want what makes sense.
He was not my forever.
But he was my moment.
And I needed that.
Because sometimes, we don't need a man.
We need a mirror in the sunlight.
A break in the pattern.
A kiss that doesn't cost us anything but time.
He let me hold softness without shame.
Let me be light without having to be funny, or useful, or impressive.
Matteo wasn't the one.
He was the dream I had to let go of so I could stop dreaming someone else would fix what I kept abandoning in myself.
That's the thing about fantasies—they shimmer.
They blur the edges.
They give you just enough beauty to ignore the gaps.
But they don't hold you when the glow fades.
I remember sitting alone at a café after he left. I ordered espresso and pandesal with kesong puti—they didn't have it, of course. But the craving made me laugh. Maybe I was missing home more than I thought.
I watched strangers pass and thought:
"Every single one of them has said goodbye to something they thought would last."
Maybe we're all just walking around with invisible suitcases—grief we never unpacked, stories we never finished, people we never stopped hoping would come back.
And still—we go on.
I did too.
I went home. I lit a candle. I washed my sheets. I opened my planner and wrote down new goals, not because I needed to prove anything, but because I wanted to feel anchored again.
I called my mom. I told her I missed her cooking.
She said, "Aba, 'wag ka lang magpuyat, tapos iyak nang iyak sa lungkot. Kakainin ka niyan."
Don't let sadness eat you alive.
I smiled. Ate sinigang. Let the sourness sting. It felt good.
It felt honest.
I looked around my apartment and saw it again—not as a place to come back to after someone else leaves, but as something I've built with my own hands.
The succulents on the windowsill.
The Post-its with poetry fragments stuck to my fridge.
The way my bookshelf leans slightly to the right, like it's tired too, but still standing.
I started building a life that didn't need a soundtrack.
Started dreaming without needing someone to be the ending.
Now?
Now, I don't chase fantasy.
Now, I welcome stillness.
Now, I wake up and ask:
What do I want today—not who?
I light incense that smells like palo santo.
I stretch.
I make garlic fried rice just for me.
Some mornings, I replay the sound of train doors closing—not to punish myself, but to remember that I chose to stay behind.
To stay with myself.
I'm building something real—with or without anyone else.
Because I finally know:
I didn't need a partner.
I needed peace.
And peace didn't come from someone else's arms.
It came the moment I stopped trying to escape my own.