It had gotten too cold to sit outside with my morning coffee, so instead I’d begun to indulge myself by sitting next to the french windows, close to the radiator when it turned on in the mornings. There was something oddly comforting about the way the gradually warming air created a pocket in the cold room. My own personal ozone.
I sat in the thickly padded chair, inhaling the coffee scented steam from my mug and watched the birds attack the bird feeder in the darkness of the morning. It was quiet, and it reminded me that the year was passing. That this pain would pass.
Mum and Dad ebbed and flowed around me. I was a rock in the middle of the stream.
I tried to keep my grief incongruous, but they still treated me the same way we’d treated Mum when she’d come home from the hospital, all those months ago. She’d hated it then, but I found it peaceful. It allowed me to not pretend.
On some mornings, I got up extra early to experience the day as it crested over the horizon. A new day, a step closer to not feeling as if I was slowing crumbling. Eroding, like those stone steps.
Mum had offered, again, to tell me more about my biological father. I think she’d offered because she felt the story of her own heartbreak might somehow ease my own, but I’d declined. The thought of having to bear the remembered pain she kept within her was too much to carry. The idea that this might still hurt so many years later was… frightening. I operated on the hope that one day I would wake up and not remember what had happened and feel like I had been thrown off a cliff.
It was funny, in a way, because I’d spent so long during our relationship feeling like we were teetering on a cliff’s edge. It hadjust never occurred to me that this is what falling of would be like.
I’d paused my Korean lessons for the past couple of weeks, unable to bear the thought of them. Instead I’d been pouring my thoughts into writing. It had been accidental. I’d gotten up one morning, forgetting that I’d postponed my tutor. I’d sat at my desk, and as I always did to wake myself up in the mornings, I’d gone through the Google articles I’d set up alerts for, when one for the pop singer Harlow had come up. It was a shitty, misogynistic article about how she only ever wrote best-selling music when she was going through a breakup, which accounted for how many men she seemed to date. After I had gotten over my righteous indignation on Harlow’s behalf, my brain started weaving a narrative I was almost unaware of it, until full sentences began to write themselves, and I was forced to open my writing program.
By the time the sun had risen I’d written several pages.
Since then, I’d been chipping away at it every day, going back and forth, writing, re-writing, starting over until I had something that felt complete.
I’d written an article exploring why people resonated with love songs more than any other genre of music, despite the general acceptance that there was an over-saturation in the market. It didn’t stop people from overwhelmingly choosing that kind of song over any other. In fact, it crossed genre. From pop, to metal, to jazz, to classical. Love was the bridge. It was the ultimate human experience. A shared resonance. Either you had found it and relate, or you had never felt it and longed for it. It connected us all.
The second half was a more introspective discourse on how music that relates to heartbreak has the power to make us feel less alone in the experience. It validated us, made us feel seen,and more importantly, it showed us that through the rubble there was light.
Writing was cathartic. Researching the themes and putting them into words had the same effect on me. I felt validated, and I began to see that glimmer of light for myself. Writing gave me permission to grieve without it overwhelming me, and by the end, even though the pain was still very much there, I felt like one day, it might hurt less.
I sent the article to my editor, James. He replied by the end of the day.
James M
I just read your article. Damn, kid. You ok?
Kaiya T
Just looking at things with a fresh perspective. Will it do?
James M
Yeah, kid. It’ll do.
A couple hours later and my article had gone onto the front page ofThe Loop
By the morning, it had gone viral.
I sat downstairs with my parents watching TheGreat British Bake Off, idly aware of the ticking viewer count on my article. James had been pushing me notifications throughout the afternoon, and as it hit two million views, he sent me a GIF of a cat in a party hat. I smiled and put my phone back in my pocket.
“Good news, Ky?” Mum smiled at me.
She watched me closely these days, looking for any sign that I might need a tissue, a hug, or a hot drink.
“Just a funny video.”
We watched the rest of the show, occasionally making a comment when someone’s cake didn’t rise or the judges made a rude comment.
It was nice.
It had taken me nearly a week to turn my phone back on. I think I’d instinctively known he wasn’t going to reach out, but by having my phone off it left the possibility of it alive in my mind.
When I had turned it back on, there had been nothing from him. In some ways, it was a relief to know I hadn’t been wrong, and hadn’t been sitting on unread messages for days. But in other ways it had cemented something in me that I hadn’t realised had still been fluid. It had felt almost physical – a door closing – the thump of the wood against the frame, the click of the latch as it slid into place.
