How can you let go when I still love you?

Part 4

Okay, I admit it. Sometimes I would give in to the small urges to check her profile.

It had become a bit of a habitual thought ever since I had learned that she would sometimes make posts about me in places where she didn't think I would be looking.

She tried not to make it obvious but I knew they were about me. After all, she would post about the exact situations that both she and I were in. Like the subject of our last call or text conversation.

It's something I'm slightly curious about so I check every now and then. And I can tell by the way she talks about me in the posts and how she sometimes acts weird around me that she's not over me.

But it's just not something I really care about anymore. 

I'd moved on. She may have been my first girlfriend but that doesn't mean she had to be my only girlfriend. I was meeting people. But even in the months since I had removed her from my heart and the years since we had broken up, I hadn't dated anyone else.

Were there girls I liked? Sure. But there wasn't anyone who was as close to me as her, who I knew would say yes if I asked her out.

So, I near resigned myself to being single.

---

The lonely nights didn't stop or get any better, but that didn't stop me from trying to force them to.

If all I wanted was to have someone to talk to before going to sleep, anyone should do. That's what I convinced myself. 

So I tried dating apps. And when I couldn't find good conversationalists there, I tried other things. Like Discord servers and apps 'just for chatting'.

I found more success there, but it still wasn't complete. Sure, I acted comfortable around these strangers, but in truth, I wasn't. I was still just holding up a façade, even as we were supposedly getting to know each other. 

It wasn't good enough. It wasn't comfortable, the way it always was with him. 

I wanted someone I could message literally anything at anytime, without any worries or reservations about how the conversation would go, or if I'm bothering them. 

I didn't feel that with any of the people I was talking to. At the end of the day, they still felt like strangers I had to be polite with. 

So eventually, I stopped talking to them. 

---

After a while, I noticed that she stopped being the one to initiate conversations. 

Naturally, that meant that we stopped talking as much. Of course, I did initiate conversations with her from time to time. Why wouldn't I? We were friends, and besides, she was the one who kept me in her close friends on Instagram. Clearly that meant I could talk to her when I wanted to. 

But conversations were short. They were nothing like before.

It also didn't help that I had gotten into a fight with our mutual friend in our 3 person group chat and killed the vibes there. That made it harder to just have long, casual conversations since it would now just be one-on-one in the DMs. So, we didn't. Our interactions were basically just limited to Instagram story likes and replies.

Not that it mattered much. My life was the same with or without her.

---

It was so annoying. Why did he always cut me off too whenever he had a falling out with our mutual friend?

Since things didn't pan out with the internet strangers, I was back to the same old routine of lying down with an inexplicable loneliness in my heart, thinking I just want some human interaction, when in reality, I want to talk to someone who sees me and knows me.

At this point, I knew I wouldn't find that from him. Which is what always kept me from actually sending a message. But it didn't stop the longing for those old times from hitting me like a truck.

The occasional replies on my stories from the 'real' him didn't go unnoticed.

In fact, I still felt my heart jump whenever I saw a notification from him. Whether it was because I still liked him, or if I was just nervous around him and scared of what he might say because of our long history, I wasn't sure.

I tried to be as normal as possible during these short interactions. It wasn't too hard, especially considering just how short they were, usually 4-5 messages between us, max.

It was our new normal. We were like strangers who were friends. Barely a shadow of the kind of relationship we used to have remained.

I still remembered some of his usual tendencies though, like how he preferred to ask direct questions and get direct answers. How he liked going out to cool restaurants with good food.

I felt a strange sense of pride whenever I could guess what kind of response he would give. As if I was still the person who knew him best.

I wasn't.

---

My greatest motive for hanging out with friends, getting food out at a nice place, was suggested by a former classmate of both of us.

Obviously, I was going. I wasn't gonna miss any excuse to go out and eat food.

She was a little hesitant to go at first, but she eventually agreed.

I felt my eye twitching. Why did that tick me off so much?

In any case, it didn't matter much. I was going to eat good food for a good price. It didn't really matter who I was with.

On the day of, I'd gotten to the restaurant early, having just come from school. I pulled out  my assignment that was due that night. 

After working and staring at my problem set for some time, the door opened and someone approached the table.

"Helloo~"

She tried to smoothly take the seat in front of me but stumbled on the chair's feet as she pulled it out. 

"Hey." I glanced up at her and spoke after putting my head down again.

She sat quietly, just looking around at the assignment in front of me, the drink I had ordered, the ambiance of the restaurant.

"...How's it going?" I asked without looking up.

She sighed. "Poorly."

"Why is it going poorly?" I barely reacted.

"Well. You know." 

I waited for her to elaborate but she didn't. "...No??" Did she expect me to read her mind?

She just laughed. "I knew you'd say that."

It irked me to hear her say that. We hadn't had a proper interaction or conversation in months. 

She didn't seem to want to volunteer any more information than that so I didn't respond anymore either. We sat in silence for several minutes after that. 

I continued to work on my assignment while she played solitaire on her phone. Sometimes, she would just stop and stare at what I was doing, or she looked around the restaurant again.

It was always awkward at first whenever we saw each other.

At least it was over with already.