He left 40 minutes later.
I sat in that restaurant for 2 hours because I couldn't figure out how to make my legs work.
What followed was 3 months that I am not exaggerating when I say were the worst of my life.
I did everything.
I texted him. Carefully at first...
"I just want to understand what happened"...
Then desperately.
Long messages.
Voice notes.
One voice note that was 7 minutes long that I still can't listen to.
I called his best friend.
I know. I know...
I sat outside his apartment once. Just sat in my car outside.
For 75 minutes. And then I drove home and felt so ashamed of myself I couldn't breathe.
I spent $400 on tarot readings in 6 weeks. 4 different readers.
Each one told me "he's thinking about you, he's confused, a reunion is coming." I clung to every word like it was oxygen.
I bought 3 different "get your ex back" courses. I took notes. I made spreadsheets.
I followed no contact rules with military precision and then broke them at 11pm on a random Wednesday because I saw a photo of him at a bar and just... couldn't.
The worst part wasn't the loneliness. It wasn't even the heartbreak.
It was the obsession.
I couldn't think about anything else.
I was checking his Instagram 14 times a day. I'd notice when he watched my stories and spend forty minutes analysing what it meant.
I googled "signs your ex misses you" so many times that Google started auto-completing it before I finished typing.
My best friend finally sat me down and said, "Olivia. I love you. But you're disappearing."
She was right. I was.
And then, on a Thursday night in May... 4 months after he left... I was sitting on my bathroom floor again.
Not crying anymore. Just... empty. I'd run out of tears.
And I thought, for the first time, something I'd never let myself think before: