Ed's name appeared on the caller ID display. I was delighted and couldn't suppress a little smile/pout in a sort of "I knew it" way. I dried my eyes and answered as calmly as possible. Trying to pretend I hadn't been crying.

"How have you been? Are you ok?"

His voice sounded gentle as usual. I wondered if I should give him a hard time for causing so much distress and turmoil. So he can apologize and tell me he missed me. So I can tell him I missed him too. As a matter of fact, I missed him so much that I want to vomit. Which is both telling and frightening because this is all way too intense to be normal. I'd never felt anything even remotely like this before. But all I said was:

"Why are you calling me?"

There was a pause.

Holding my breath, I waited eagerly for what he might say next, but when he spoke at last, I felt myself all at once grow heavy.

Calmly and kindly, Ed says he wanted to check in. He thought I might be confused, he says. Confused. That's a good word. It hadn't occurred to me to label my current state as confused. I thought I was just supposed to accept "incompatible" as perfectly clear. I thought that's what mature people did. Damn right I'm confused. But I don't want to know. (More honestly though, I'm terrified of what I might find.) I just want us to go back to the way we were. But his tone...

His tone, reminded me of the time I broke up with my very first boyfriend, who called a few days after the breakup, wounded and vulnerable. It pained me to see him in so much pain. As we wept together, I tried my best to comfort him and I didn't want him to think he did anything wrong. I wanted to be there for him for as long as it would take him to get over the sorrow, but I wasn't about to get back together. Something about Ed's tone reminded me of my own.

Like frost settling in, I felt myself grow cold, layer by layer. I paced the room. My eyes sloshed around their sockets, unsure of where to rest. Hoping against reason, I clutched onto the phone, willing him to tell me, "COME BACK. DON'T GO. I MISS YOU!"

But ...he's not saying it.

Still...he's not saying it.

He's just not saying it. Damn it!

"Hello?"

I open my mouth to answer but could only choke forth a feeble "I'm here," before the tears rushed out. Every muscle of my body tensed to control the weeping. But like water seeping through a closed door, there's no way to stop, they just go on flowing.

Ed let me know that he still cares about me and wants to be friends. Friends? I don't want to be friends. I can't do it! The idea of him with another girl (oh heaven forbid, a girl prettier than me!?) while I stood aside as the "friend" trying to pretend to be happy for them only made me sob harder. Why would a guy care about you but only want to be friends? What is the unspeakable reason? What is the truth he cannot say? What is the truth I cannot bear? Oh I want to know, but I don't want to know.

I want...

I don't want...

I want...

I don't want...

Not able to bear the suspense any longer, at last, I rasped out the only thing I could think of:

"Am I not pretty enough?"

I was mortified at having to ask this, mid-sob and my voice sounded hysterical. There's nothing I liked about the way the question was asked, but it had to be asked. It's a question that'd been tormenting my mind for days, one that I'd shielded from my awareness, one that I didn't even dare to think. Because beyond that, I couldn't imagine a more hurtful reason for him to leave.

"No," He said.

"Tell me the truth."

"No!"

I didn't believe him. Why would a guy like you? It's because you're pretty of course. Why would a guy stop liking you, it's because you're not. Of course.

I asked him to never call me again and that I would call him when I'm ready. I didn't want him to see me like this. I couldn't stand seeing myself like this.

I sat on my bed in silence for a long time afterwards. Stoned from crying. How could you love so hard and now it's just GONE, without a sound? Without even a moment in which for me to see it crumble? I lay down on my side in the darkness, and tears flowed silently onto the pillow. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that I'll get over this, and waited for the sadness to pass. Days passed, then weeks, then months, winter ended and spring came, but the crying went on. I cried so hard I didn't know this kind of crying was possible. I cried every single day, multiple times a day, for half a year. I cried in the hallways at school, at work, at lunch, in the middle of conversations with friends. I cried at home. I cried on the phone. I said to my friend Sarah, "I can't believe I'm still crying even months after he left. It's absurd!" To which she responded with kindness and understanding far beyond her years, "Of course you're upset," she said, "You're heartbroken."

Heartbroken.

Ah... so this is heartbreak.

By the time March rolled around, I thought my mood would lift with the weather. Branches sprouted delicate buds of pink and white cherry blossoms, bearing the newness of a fresh season. Sunlight streamed through the sheer petals, casting a warm glow all around. Embraced by all this beauty, and all I could feel was... nothing. Lovers holding hands sauntered across Robson Street with shopping bags of fancy new things, eyes lit up with glee, yet I couldn't feel envy nor their joy. I saw life in its noisy excitement passing me by. But I was numb to everything except for this perpetual pain, a weight pressing down my chest that feels like you can't quite breathe right. No matter how the seasons changed, my world was always raining. Mom said I cried like a little person made of tears.

I can only attempt to imagine now, the kind of helpless frustration my parents had to endure watching me fall apart every day at dinner, eat a few bites of rice, then retreat to my room to continue weeping. My dad couldn't understand why I was so upset over someone, whom in his opinion, was so average? (To parents, nobody is ever good enough for their children.) Neither he nor my mother has experienced heartbreak of this magnitude. What do they know about it? They got it right the first time.

Dad said, "Maybe he was wrong for you to begin with. You're not a pet. You don't need a guy to pamper you like a cat".

I paused in my sobbing. Thought about it. Then went back to my room.

People often say, the best way to get over someone is to date someone else. Perhaps it would ease the pain if I escaped to the dim lights of the nightclubs to feel once again empowered by beauty. I remember it had once been fun – the foolproof remedy at the end of a short-lived romance. After all, what is the value of beauty, if there's no one to admire it? But I didn't go. I was surprised to find that I didn't even want to go. The enchanted forest that had once held so much magical promise felt so...blah. I was surprised to find that I, boy-crazy me, wasn't interested in anyone else. I also felt it would be unfair to the next guy because I was still in love with Ed. If I went, I'd only return feeling empty, not to mention resentful that I'd wasted my time.

So I stayed home.

Well, I stayed home and I cried. Brooding and obsessing over why he left till the end of time. Even though I couldn't stop the weeping, this much I knew – the rest of world doesn't halt because mine happens to be permanently parked in misery. The earth doesn't stop spinning, the classes don't stop happening, and the homework don't stop piling up. Nobody is going to stop in their tracks and feel sorry for you because you can't pull yourself together. So every day after school, I sat at my desk and gritted my teeth through homework.

I would cry, and pull my attention back to the textbook.

Cry and pull it back.

Cry and pull it back.

I would repeat this every five minutes, every day, for months on end. It was nearly impossible to concentrate, like shooting photos from the cracked lens of a camera, things just weren't coming into focus. I felt hazy mostly. Every page was stained with tears, and I was moving at the pace of a snail. (I decided to give myself a break from hating myself for being so slow, given that I was already exhausted from hating myself for losing Ed). I told myself over and over again – I don't want to make my life any more miserable than it already is. Despite the incessant weeping that seemed to go on forever, part of me knew one day the storm will pass. When that day comes, when I'm finally free from this bottomless hole of hell, when I'm able to feel the warmth of sunshine again, smell the roses or experience joy, I want to be exactly where I intended to be with my life, I don't want to find myself 500 miles behind.

I got straight A's that term. That was the year I truly learned about discipline. The day I saw my grades, I sighed. I wasn't happy, but I felt strong.

During this dark period of grief, I'd often wished I could go back to being the girl I was before I met Ed. Happy-go-lucky, flirty, confident, invincible, as light as the breeze. There are some experiences in life that really leave you changed. Heartbreak ranks as high as any.

And what Dad said, stuck.