21. In A Much Better Disposition
IN A MUCH BETTER DISPOSITION
The strange thing about finally breaking apart completely was that there was nothing left to hide afterward.
That night at The Mandani, after all the crying and hugging and emotional collapse, we stayed there for hours.
And for the first time, I told my friends everything about Victor.
The situationship.
The ending last year.
What happened after that.
Leaving the city.
Coming back.
Getting back together with him.
And then losing him all over again.
There were moments while talking when I still felt embarrassed by the scale of my grief. Because saying it out loud somehow made it sound impossible.
Three months?
Just a situationship?
And it nearly destroyed my life?
But none of my friends laughed.
None of them minimized it.
If anything, they looked heartbroken for me.
Honey cried at some parts. Andi cried at almost all of it. Andre looked like he wanted to punch a wall every five minutes. Mel stayed quiet beside me, rubbing slow circles against my back whenever my voice started shaking too hard.
And eventually, somewhere between tears and silence and the city lights reflecting against the water, we also talked about what happened between us: the betrayal.
Or at least, what used to feel like one.
Andi apologized first. The others nodded quietly.
But honestly? By then, I no longer had it in me to feel angry about it, because the truth was, I knew my friends more.
And none of them had ever truly wanted to hurt me.
Then later that night, after things finally calmed down a little, Honey looked at me and asked if I was going to disappear again.
The question settled between all of us, because the truth was, they remembered how my vanishing scared them.
I ignored messages for weeks. Stopped showing up.
Stopped being visible. And when I finally resurfaced months later, I looked thinner, quieter, and like something inside me had permanently changed shape.
So this time, they were bracing for it again.
And honestly? I was too.
But Mel squeezed my hand and told me it was okay to disappear if I needed to. The others nodded in agreement.
And somewhere in the middle of all that sadness, an unspoken agreement settled between us: they would give me space.
No forcing me outside.
No constant check-ins.
No pressure to heal quickly.
Just trust that I needed to disappear for a while.
And strangely enough, maybe that was part of why the next two weeks unfolded differently than I expected.
During the first few days, I genuinely thought I was about to collapse all over again.
I cried while showering.
Cried while eating.
Cried to Shake It Off again.
Sometimes his absence still hit me so suddenly it felt physical, like my chest couldn’t fully expand around it.
But then something strange happened.
On the fourth day, I woke up… lighter.
Not healed. Not happy. Not magically over him.
Just lighter.
Like my body finally stopped bracing for impact.
Then the next day came, and I realized I had gone almost an hour without thinking about him.
The next day after that, I caught myself laughing alone at a TikTok comment without forcing it.
Then one morning, I opened my eyes and realized the grief was no longer the first thing greeting me.
And honestly? That scared me a little.
Because after what happened last year, I genuinely thought losing Victor again would destroy me the same way.
I thought I would disappear again. Shut down again. Lose months of my life again.
But somehow… I didn’t.
Sure, I still missed him sometimes. I still caught myself reaching for my phone wanting to tell him things or still wondered what he was doing at random hours of the day, but the pain no longer felt endless.
And maybe the reason shocked me most of all is that this time, there was no confusion left.
Because somewhere between losing Victor twice and surviving it twice, I had finally learned that the exes who came back into my life had left me with more than just memories.
They left me with lessons.
Lessons I didn’t fully understand at the time, but ones that finally made sense now.
Loving Victor felt beautiful, yes. But it also felt like constantly standing near the edge of something unstable, hoping it wouldn’t collapse that day.
I already did everything I could.
And in the end, it didn’t work out.
Strangely, that truth gave me peace.
When you’ve truly exhausted every possible version of you trying, your heart eventually runs out of alternate endings to fantasize about.
There was nothing left to decode anymore.
Victor loved me.
I believed that completely.
But he loved me in a way that still wounded me. And I finally understood that love alone could not outweigh the damage he continuously caused me.
Sometimes, a person can love you and still fail to hold your heart properly.
That realization hurt less than uncertainty.
Besides, I had survived heartbreak before. Worse, even.
I had gotten over people who had lived inside my system far longer than Victor ever did. So why did I once believe Victor would be the exception?
Maybe because I had mistaken intensity for destiny.
Maybe because situationships create the perfect environment for obsession: no stability, no certainty, just enough affection to keep hope alive and just enough distance to make you chase it harder.
But now that the fantasy finally collapsed completely, I could see it clearly.
Victor was not ‘the one.’
He was simply the one I loved the hardest.
And there was a difference.
I stood in front of the mirror, and for the first time in a long time, I actually recognized the person looking back at me.
The apartment glowed softly around me, warm light bouncing against the bed and half-open drawers I had torn through while getting ready.
Music played quietly from the speaker below—something fun, something alive—and the city outside the floor-to-ceiling window shimmered in gold and white beneath the night sky.
I adjusted the sleeves of my black button-down and stared at myself for another second.
I look good!
I looked good in a way that felt earned. The kind of good that comes after surviving something that almost destroyed you.
My hair finally sat properly again. The dark circles beneath my eyes had softened. My body no longer looked hollowed out by grief. There was color in my face again.
There was life in it.
And the strangest part was that I actually wanted to go outside.
Days ago, the thought alone would’ve terrified me.
But earlier that evening, my phone lit up with messages from my friends, telling me that they were going out tonight.
I didn’t reply, because I wasn’t sure.
I just sat there staring at the messages for a while, realizing something: two weeks of hiding from the world suddenly felt too long.
I missed the noise, the laughter, being outside with people who loved me.
And honestly? After everything that had happened, being around my friends sounded less like socializing and more like breathing again.
Still, fear lingered beneath my ribs.
Because Southside still carried him.
What if I passed streets that remembered us?
What if the city still hurt?
What if I wasn’t as okay as I thought I was?
The thoughts stayed with me as I grabbed my phone and stepped out of my apartment.
The elevator ride down felt strangely cinematic:
Soft music humming overhead.
Numbers descending slowly.
My reflection staring back at me through the mirrored walls.
It felt like the universe itself was pausing to ask, ‘Are you ready?’
Then the elevator doors opened to the lobby.
I walked slowly across the marbled floor, my footsteps quieter than usual, until I reached the entrance doors.
And then I stopped.
Because right there—just beyond the glass—was the city I spent months being afraid of.
The same city that watched me fall apart.
The same streets that once felt haunted.
For a second, my chest tightened again.
Not roaring… just cautious.
I stared outside as people passed beneath streetlights, laughing loudly, carrying shopping bags, holding hands, living lives that kept moving no matter who broke their hearts.
And somewhere inside me, fear whispered:
What if it still hurts?
I inhaled slowly.
Then finally, I reached for the door handle… and slid the door open.
The night air wrapped around me instantly—cold but alive and filled with movement.
Cars slid past in streaks of light. Music spilled from nearby restaurants. Conversations overlapped across sidewalks. The entire city breathed around me like it had been waiting for me to return.
I took another step…
Then another.
And there it was, that familiar ache.
Across the street, I remembered the exact spot where he once stood waiting for me late at night, one hand inside his pocket while smiling the moment he saw me.
The memory stung.
But curiously, it didn’t destroy me anymore.
A few steps later, I passed another corner and remembered us kissing there once beneath the glow of a convenience store sign, laughing between breaths like the world belonged only to us.
That hurt too… but… softly now, like touching an old bruise instead of an open wound.
And suddenly, I realized something that made me stop walking for half a second.
Victor didn’t own Southside. He only existed in it.
For months, I let heartbreak convince me this city belonged to my pain. That every café, every sidewalk, every skyline had become his.
But Southside was mine long before I met him.
Mine before the longing.
Mine before the grief.
Mine before love turned into survival.
I looked around slowly, taking the city back piece by healing piece.
The lights.
The streets.
The fun.
The stores.
The pavements.
The good parts.
The bad parts.
The smelly parts.
The noise.
The life.
Mine.
A small smile pulled at my lips.
And then I kept walking through the street like the final scene of a movie where the main character survives everything that tried to break him—and finally realizes the world is still waiting outside.
Southside was mine.
By the time I arrived at the club, the city no longer felt heavy around me.
The neon lights outside bled across the pavement in streaks of pink, blue, and gold. Bass pulsed faintly through the walls before I even stepped inside, vibrating against my chest.
Inside, the place was alive.
People danced beneath moving lights that cut through the dark in flashes of color.
Glasses clinked. Laughter echoed everywhere. And somewhere above all the noise, ‘Heartbreak Anthem’ blasted through the speakers loud enough to shake the floor.
I scanned the crowd immediately.
Then I found them.
My friends sat together in one of the corner booths near the dance floor, illuminated by shifting lights and half-finished drinks. But despite the music and movement around them, they looked strangely subdued. Sullen.
Honey sat with her chin resting against her hand.
Mel stared absentmindedly into her drink.
Andi scrolled through her phone but clearly wasn’t reading anything.
Andre leaned back against the booth; arms crossed tightly like he was trying not to think too much.
But they were waiting for me.
And suddenly, something inside me softened so fast it almost hurt.
Because after everything, I still had somewhere to return to.
And before I could even think about it properly, my feet started moving faster
And suddenly I was running across the club.
“OH MY GOD!” Andi screamed the moment she saw me sprinting toward them.
I launched myself straight into the booth dramatically, nearly crashing into all of them at once.
Everyone shrieked in surprise.
“JAMES!” Honey yelled, nearly spilling her drink on her high-fashion outfit.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mel shouted through laughter.
Andre looked genuinely ready to fight someone for half a second before realizing it was me.
And then their shocked faces melted into instant relief.
Into happiness.
Into home.
“You’re alive!” Andi cried dramatically before grabbing my face with both hands and kissing my cheek repeatedly.
“Girl, my no-foundation foundation!” I complained.
Honey immediately wrapped her arms around me from the side. Mel laughed while pulling me into hers too.
And Andre—he looked away like he was about to cry.
“You asshole,” he muttered, voice thick with emotion before pulling me into a crushing embrace.
I laughed so hard I almost cried again.
“I’m sorry,” I said breathlessly.
“No, because why did you enter like a divorced father trying to win custody?” Honey snapped.
“That was terrifying,” Mel added.
“You literally ran at us like a horror movie creature,” Andi said.
Andre still hadn’t fully let go of me.
I was his forever baby.
Then he suddenly looked around at all of us and shook his head emotionally.
“I love all of you so much,” he said, already tearing up.
And immediately everyone groaned.
“Oh my God, Andre’s crying,” Andi said, as though teasing a child.
“Shut up,” Andre rolled his eyes.
“Disgusting!” Honey muttered affectionately.
“Group hug!” Mel said immediately.
And just like that, all of us collapsed into each other, laughing while the music roared around us.
Because maybe heartbreak changes a city forever.
Maybe some people leave fingerprints on your life that never completely disappear.
But Southside would never truly belong to my grief as long as I still had people willing to sit through the dark with me until I found my way back.
And over the past year, I learned a lot.
About boys.
About exes.
About friendships.
About loneliness.
About the terrifying ways people can love each other and still fail each other completely.
But most of all, I learned about situationships.
How they blur lines.
How they feed hope.
How they convince you to build homes inside uncertainty.
How they can ruin you if you forget yourself inside them.
And somehow, after all the heartbreak and all the healing, I finally understood the question that started everything:
Why does a three-month situationship sometimes hurt more than relationships that lasted years?
The answer isn’t simple, but I learned it the hard way.
So if you’re reading this, or watching my TikTok on your phone while waiting for someone who keeps making you question your worth…
This one’s for you.
A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship.