Stranger

There is something smelly in here.

Clean. Not necessarily good, just clean. Paper and bleach and lemon. Washed-out. Sober. The smell of something serious. That something is going to change.

I almost turned around twice. Once at the door, and again when I saw the woman at the front desk look up at me with that too-bright receptionist smile.

But I didn't.

"Hello sweetie," she said. "Calling to check

I nodded, clearing my throat. "Yes. Um, for 3:30?"

"Name"

I hesitated. "Elena…. Elena Moore."

She typed something into her screen, her nails clacking. “Alright. Looks like you’re all set. First-time appointment?”

I nodded again. I could feel my fingers twitching.

The woman softened. Her voice dropped. “It’s okay to be nervous.”

I looked at her, and I don’t know why, but I blurted out, “Do a lot of people come here?”

She smiled, not the fake kind this time. “More than you’d think.”

That didn’t comfort me.

She handed me a clipboard.

“Just sign the release form and waiver. You’ll be taken back in a few.”

I stared at the page. So many words. Legal stuff. Warnings. Possible side effects.

One part said:

‘You may experience emotional disorientation following the procedure. Please allow time to adjust.’

Disorientation?….

That’s such a weird word for heartbreak.

A nurse came for me after waiting ten minutes. She was most likely in her mid-thirties?.. Attractive, but exhausted. As though she had seen too many like me.

"Elena?" she asked.

I looked up.

She smiled softly. "Come along."

The hallway was cold.

The lights buzzed.

“First time?” she asked, as if this were a damn eyebrow appointment.

"Yeah," I whispered.

She nodded before glancing over. “You okay?”

I didn't react right away. I just shrugged.

We reached the room.

White walls. One chair. One screen.

As if in a dream

She gave me a gown. "Just put this on. I'll be right back."

I looked at the gown, then back at her. “Is this gonna hurt?”

Her expression relaxed. "Not the way you're imagining."

I was in the chair when she came back, my knees up to my chest as if I were a child.

She didn't rushed me.

“You sure about this?” she asked. “I mean really sure?”

I stared straight ahead. “I can’t stop thinking about him. Even when I don’t want to. I wake up thinking about him. I go to sleep wondering what I did wrong.”

My throat felt thick.

“I just want it to stop.”

She sat down across from me. “Was it your first love?”

I nodded. “He said he loved me. And I believed it. Even when he started acting different. Even when he stopped trying. I kept loving him like it would bring him back.”

Her eyes were glossy now, too. “You know you don’t have to forget to heal, right?”

I looked at her. “But what if I can’t heal unless I forget?”

She was quiet.

Then she asked, “What’s his name?”

I paused.

Then I said it.

Soft. Like it still had weight.

“Evan”

She nodded. Tapped something into the monitor.

“Last chance to back out.”

I let out a shaky laugh. “If I don’t do this, I’ll keep checking his Instagram like a psycho. I’ll keep thinking I’m the problem. That if I’d just been prettier, or cooler, or more… something, he’d still be here.”

I swallowed hard.

“I’m tired of loving someone who doesn’t love me back.”

The nurse looked at me for a long moment. No clipboard. No screens. Just me. Just her. Two women sitting in a white room with too much silence between them.

Then she said softly, “You’re so young.”

I clutched at my throat. What’s that supposed to mean?”

She smiled—sad, but kind. “It means this won’t be the last time you feel something this deep. It feels like the end of the world now. I know. But it’s not. You’ll grow out of this pain the same way you grew out of re-reading those sad text messages or waiting for their name to pop up on your phone.”

I looked down. “I don’t want to grow out of it.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

“Because that means I have to let go of him,” I said, voice cracking. “And I don’t want to. But I have to. Because loving him hurts now. Even remembering him hurts.”

A tear slid down my cheek before I could stop it.

“I just want it to stop.”

She reached for a tissue, but didn’t hand it to me. Just held it in her lap like she knew I wasn’t ready yet.

“Elena…” she said gently. “Love isn’t supposed to make you feel like you’re hard to love back. It’s not supposed to make you question your worth or rewrite yourself to be enough.”

My lip trembled.

“Real love holds you. Even when you’re messy. Even when you’re not okay. And yes, sometimes it ends. Sometimes it changes. But what you had—it doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.”

I shook my head, voice barely there. “Then why does it feel like I’m the one who ruined it?”

She stood and walked over, crouching in front of me like a mom would. “Because you’re still healing. Because you cared more than he did. Because sometimes we stay too long hoping someone becomes the version they were at the beginning.”

I wiped my face roughly. “Everyone keeps telling me I’ll be okay. That I’ll get over it. But I don’t want to get over it. I wanted it to work. I wanted him to stay.”

“I know,” she said. “I know you did.”

“I didn’t want to be another girl he forgot.”

She squeezed my hand. “But you won’t be.”

I looked at her, broken wide open. “How do you know?”

“Because he didn’t come in here to forget you.”

That hit me like a punch to the stomach.

She stood again. “You’re young. You’re beautiful. You feel everything so deeply. And one day, someone’s gonna love you because of that—not in spite of it. But right now… this is your choice. You don’t have to do this. But if you do… you’re still allowed to grieve.”

I nodded slowly, tears dripping onto my hands.

“I don’t want to forget him,” I whispered, “but I can’t carry this anymore.”

She stepped toward the machine and paused one last time.

“Elena?”

“Yeah?”

She gave me a look I’ll never forget. One full of something I hadn’t felt in a long time—compassion.

“Just promise me that if you fall in love again… you’ll let them see all of you. Not the edited version. Not the ‘easy’ version. The real one.”

“I don’t even know who that is anymore,” I said.

“You will,” she smiled. “You’re just lost. Not gone.”

Then the light above me flickered on, and the chair slowly leaned back.

And as the tears kept coming, I whispered to no one:

“Goodbye, Evan.”

And I closed my eyes.

It started slow.

Like someone pressed rewind on my life and forgot to mute the sound.

The lights in the room slowly dimmed to a golden color, and I was no longer in the clinic—I was seventeen again, sitting in the rear corner of the library of my high school.

"You're in my seat," he said.

I glanced backward. It was Evan. He had the crooked smile, the type of grin which made me think he had some sort of secret.

"I didn't know it was reserved," I replied, gripping my book tightly.

"Well, it is now," he sat down across from me. "I'm Evan by the way."

"Cool," I replied, pretending to read. But I didn't turn a page.

And then the memory glimmered—and shifted.

We were on the boardwalk. We were there for our first date.

He had a bag of oily fries in his hand, and I was giggling over something stupid but also funny he uttered.

"You have the good belly laugh," he told me.

I looked down, flushing. "Isn't that the idea?"

And then the wind blew his hoodie against me, and I felt, This feels safe.

Flash

And now our first kiss.

We sat outside on my porch, the sky being gray in the post-sunset.

He leaned into me slowly. As if he was waiting for me to bolt.

I didn't.

And when his lips met my own, I promise—I forgot all the worst of what had ever transpired previously.

Flash.

"I love you," I whispered, my voice trembling.

It was after I got into a fight with my mom. He found me crying in his car.

"You don't have to say it back Evan…," I blurted out.

He did anyway.

"I love you too," he whispered, his forehead against mine. "Even when you're a mess."

Flash.

Now we were shouting

"You don't even listen to me anymore!" I yelled, clenched-fisted.

“Because it’s always about you,” he shot back. “Your feelings. Your fears. Your insecurities… What the fuck do you want me to do?”

I felt like I was shrinking in front of him.

“You used to love all those things,” I whispered.

He didn’t respond.

And that silence hurt more than anything.

The library. The boardwalk. The porch. The car.

Every place we ever touched.

Every piece of him I carried.

Gone.

One by one.

Like someone pulling stars from the sky, until there was only night left.

I opened my eyes.

And there was nothing.

No sharp pain. No sudden relief. Just… stillness.

Like waking from a dream I couldn’t remember, but somehow missed anyway.

There was an ache in my chest—not loud, not sharp, just there. Quiet. Heavy.

Like something had been gently taken from me while I wasn’t looking.

Not a name. Not a face.

Just a feeling.

Like love, trying to find its way back… to someone I no longer knew.

1 Year Later

It had been exactly 365 days since the procedure.

I didn’t keep track on purpose—my phone reminded me. Some weird calendar notification I forgot to delete. “Therapy Follow-Up?” I think that’s what I called it. Cute, right?

It didn’t feel like a year. It felt like I had just skipped over something. Like there was a chapter torn out of the book and I’ve just been flipping past the gap ever since.

I’m okay now.

At least… I think I am.

I go to class. I get decent grades. I eat breakfast sometimes. I listen to sad music, but not the kind that ruins your day. Just the kind that makes you think a little too hard in the shower.

I’ve dated. Sort of.

A coffee date here, a study group crush there. But nothing stuck. Nothing ever feels like anything. And I don’t know if that’s normal or if it’s because I gave away a part of myself and forgot what it means to want someone back.

Sometimes I catch myself watching couples and wondering what it feels like to be held by someone who actually knows you.

But I don’t let myself spiral. That was the whole point of the procedure, right?

No spiraling.

No crying at 2 a.m.

No checking someone’s page just to torture yourself.

Just peace.

Clean, manageable peace.

Still, there are days when something feels off. Like I left the house and forgot my keys. Or like a word is sitting on the tip of my tongue but never comes out.

But I’ve gotten used to it.

Anyway, I was walking through the library on campus between classes. It wasn’t even my usual spot I had never been in that wing before. But the upstairs study rooms were full, and I liked the quiet here. No one really came to this side.

It was kind of comforting, actually. Like being invisible, but by choice.

I turned the corner into the aisle labeled Contemporary Fiction.

And stopped.

There was a boy standing there.

He had a book in his hand, but he wasn’t reading it. He was just… staring.

Right at me.

I froze.

He looked older than me by maybe a year or two. Tall. Dark curls. Sad eyes, even though he smiled when he saw me. But not the kind of smile people give strangers. It was the kind you give someone you’ve missed for a very long time.

Like he was surprised to see me alive.

“Elena?” he said.

I blinked.

Something about the way he said my name made my heart hiccup.

“…Yeah?” I said slowly.

He let out a breath. Like he’d been holding it for months. Or maybe… a year.

“Wow. Hi,” he said, smiling nervously. His voice cracked a little at the end. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. You look… good. Really good.”

I tilted my head, confused. Something about the way he said it didn’t sit right. Not creepy. Not flirty. Just… sad. Like I’d died and come back, and no one told him until now.

“I’m sorry…” I asked gently, “do I know you?”

His face changed—just barely. Not like I punched him in the chest, but like he remembered exactly how it felt to be hurt by me. Or maybe just by the version of me he used to know.

“It’s me,” he said quietly. “Evan.”

I blinked. The name fell flat in my mind. No bells. No flashes. Just… static.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Have we met before?”

He let out this choked sound—part laugh, part sigh. “Yeah, we—we used to know each other. Pretty well.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes darting around like he was searching for the right words but couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t fall apart in his hands.

“I think you might have me mixed up with someone else,” I said, taking a step to the side.

But before I could move past him, he said it. Quiet, quick, like it had been waiting on the edge of his tongue for too long.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I stopped.

He took a step forward.

“I should’ve tried harder. I should’ve been there when you needed me. I should’ve said something when you started pulling away. I thought giving you space was what you wanted, but maybe I just didn’t want to deal with what we were turning into—”

I raised a hand slowly, brows furrowed. “Wait. What… are you talking about?”

He froze. Completely.

“I—I thought maybe,” he started again, eyes wide now, full of panic. “I thought if I ever saw you again, I’d say all the things I didn’t get to say. I practiced it a million times—how I’d look you in the eyes and just… tell you.”

“Tell me what?” I asked, blinking fast. “I’m confused. I don’t—”

“I’m sorry I gave up,” he said, voice cracking. “You didn’t deserve that. You didn’t deserve to be left.”

I took a step back.

My stomach was tight, like something was curling up in it, confused and afraid.

“Listen, I don’t know who you think I am,” I said slowly, “but I’m pretty sure I’ve never met you before.”

He looked like he’d been punched.

“I—what?” he whispered. “Elena, we… you loved me.”

I shook my head. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else. I’ve never—”

But I paused.

Because something inside me shifted—sudden and sharp, like walking into a room you swore you’d never been in, but still somehow smelled like home.

It wasn’t a memory.

Not really.

Just this weird ache in my chest, like my heart flinched at the sound of his voice before my brain had a chance to understand why.

Like missing someone you’re not supposed to miss.

He must’ve seen it in my eyes—how confused I looked. How uneasy.

“No, I—sorry,” he said quickly, stepping aside. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. You just… you look like someone I used to know.”

I paused. Something in his voice cracked on the word used.

“Right,” I said, even though it didn’t feel right at all.

I turned to go.

“Elena,” he said again, softer this time.

I looked back.

He was still standing there, holding a book he clearly wasn’t going to read.

He was staring at me like I was a memory trying to come back to life.

“If we did know each other,” I said slowly, “when?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then smiled—small, tired, and a little bit broken.

“A long time ago,” he said.

And I don’t know why, but those four words made my chest hurt.