Where You Bleed, You Heal

There are moments that break you in such precise places, you know the wound

wasn’t an accident. But those are also the places where, in time, you rise different;

softer in heart, stronger in truth.

October 2024….

The week before the discard, I sat in a doctor’s office clutching my hands so tightly

they went numb. I was terrified I might have cancer. But the fear wasn’t about dying

not really. It was the thought that I had finally found my person, and I might not have

enough time to actually live it. To savor the laughter, the peace, the belonging I

thought I’d finally stumbled into.

I told him all of this. Every trembling truth. I let him see the part of me that rarely

surfaces; the one that still believes in love that stays. I thought I was building

closeness. I didn’t know I was handing him the blueprint for my undoing.

Because he knew. He always knew how much integrity meant to me. He knew

that broken promises felt like betrayal. That words, to me, weren’t casual. They were

sacred. So when the time came for him to pick me up from the airport, and my phone

lit up with three small words “I’m not coming “ I understood immediately.

That was the discard.

No explanation. No closure. Just a cold sentence designed to cut where it would bleed

longest.

The shock was physical. My body went still before my mind could catch up. I

remember standing in that airport… people moving around me, laughter, luggage

wheels spinning, and it all sounded distant, muted. I stared at the screen, reread the

words, and felt something inside me splinter. The man who once called me “home”

had locked the door from the inside.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I lay there in the dark replaying every conversation, everytouch, every sign I missed. My brain searched for logic; my heart searched for mercy.

Neither came. I kept hearing my own voice from days before, telling him how afraid I

was of dying, how grateful I was to have found him. I had been baring my soul while

he was already preparing the silence.

And yet, even then, part of me still hoped he’d call. That he’d say it was all a mistake.

That he hadn’t meant it. But deep down, I knew that the cruelty was the point. The

discard was his closure. The silence was his message.

I would spend months untangling what that moment meant. Learning that narcissistic

cruelty isn’t impulsive; it’s calculated. They wound you exactly where they know

you’ll bleed the most. And yet, in some strange alchemy, the very place I bled became

the place I healed.

Because integrity, as it turns out, is still mine. My word still matters. My love still runs

deep. And even after everything, I am still capable of telling the truth…. not to him this

time, but to myself.

The wound was never proof of weakness; it was proof of depth. Where I bled, I

healed. Where he received fuel for his next conquest, I grew in strength and wisdom. A new scar and stretch mark was added to my heart.

From my Heart to YOURS,

Shelli