You never know when the last goodbye is. We think we have forever until suddenly we don't. We enter with purpose and leave with only memory. I wish I had seen the battle he was fighting before it swallowed him whole.

I saw him the day before. It was Wednesday, our usual day at the corner cafe tucked on a quiet street. Mismatched sofas, steaming mugs, pumpkin muffins cooling on the counter, sunlight drifting through dusty windows like slow-moving gold. Autumn had settled in, crisp and gentle. I wore my auburn cardigan and fresh-cut bangs, feeling somewhere between college student and soft librarian.

He walked in, tall, warm brown eyes, gentle in his quiet way. But I knew immediately something was off. His smile didn't reach his eyes. I hugged him and his arms lingered just a second too long, heavy with something I could not name. We ordered our usual: my pumpkin latte, his Americano. Normally he would talk fast, thoughts spilling out like a rushing river. But that day he stared at his cup as if afraid to breathe too loudly.

"How was therapy?" I asked.

"Fine," he said quickly, brushing it off. When I gently asked if he relapsed, he joked about meds instead, a thin laugh covering something hollow. I remembered the before: nights he drank until he broke, messages filled with despair, me driving to his house when he went silent too long. He went to rehab for four months. He came back brighter. Alive again. I thought we won.

We walked my favorite trail. Fallen leaves crunched beneath us, the breeze smelled like pine and earth. We talked about how we met, about Christmas lights and peppermint hot chocolate, about school and silly memories. But the conversation felt like packing up a life, like looking at moments through glass. When we reached the end, he hugged me tighter than ever, breath shaky against my shoulder.

"See you tomorrow?" I asked, heart fluttering with something uneasy.

He gave that small gentle smile. "For always and forever."

It was our promise, born during his darkest time, when I begged him not to leave me. He always said I was stuck with him. I believed him.

That night, he didn't answer my texts. I assumed he was studying. I trusted tomorrow.

Morning. My dad called. "Come home," he said, voice tight. My stomach dropped. When I arrived, I saw my dad and his mom. Her face crumbled, and my world went silent.

"He jumped into the Hudson River," my dad whispered.

I didn't scream. My body sank. My chest collapsed. Everything blurred. Later, an envelope with my name sat waiting.

Dear Crystal,

None of this was because of you. You never failed me. You gave me comfort when no one else could. I tried for you, for my family, but the pain lived in every inch of me. You will be a brilliant doctor, an amazing wife, a wonderful mother. You will have the life you deserve. I love you.

Always and forever,
James

Half my heart broke away with him. I couldn't breathe without feeling the weight of his absence.

***

 Years passed. I am twenty six now. Six years since he left. I could not stay in our town; grief clung to every street. I moved across the country for med school. I studied, worked, survived, not healed. I am in my final semester with a psych residency ahead. People see success. Some days I see it too. Other days I feel like that twenty-year-old girl again, sitting on her bedroom floor unable to breathe.

Sometimes I stare at the Pacific and wonder if he hesitated, if the water felt like peace or terror, if he regretted it for a second. Grief comes in waves. I have drowned in every one.

One afternoon, my friend Lacy knocked. Wind in her hair. She saw the sadness before I spoke.

"You were thinking about him," she said softly. I nodded. She held my hand. "Come with me."

She drove us to the ocean. Gray sky. Cold wind. The water roared like it knew secrets I didn't want to face.

"Do whatever you need," she said. "Just don't stay trapped. You are alive, but you are not living."

Then she screamed. Loud. Raw. Free. People stared. I laughed through tears. Then I screamed too.

For the cafe. For the trail. For his voice. For the river. For the letter. For always and forever.

My knees gave out and I collapsed into the sand. Lacy wrapped her arms around me. I let myself break completely. I sobbed until my body shook. She held me like she was holding my pieces together.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"What are best friends for?" she whispered back.

Then she ran into the waves, and I followed. The ocean hit like ice and truth. Salt on my tongue, wind in my lungs, water lifting me instead of drowning me. I floated, breathing deeply, letting the tide carry the ache without erasing it.

It has taken me years to understand grief is not something you finish. It moves in cycles. It is mornings where you wake up and feel light, and nights where the quiet feels like punishment. I used to think healing meant letting him go, but now I think it means learning to carry him differently.

In New Jersey, I could feel him everywhere. In the street where we bought hot chocolate, in the bench by the river, in the echo of laughter that only lived in memory. California became escape and beginning all at once. My apartment looks over the ocean, and every morning I breathe in salt air and hope I will feel whole again someday.

Some days I do. Some days I don't. I dyed my hair, changed my clothes, tried to reinvent myself like grief was something you could outrun. But every version of me still loved him. Still missed him. Still wished he had stayed long enough to see me become who I am now.

The ocean water was freezing, but it felt like waking up. The waves pushed against me, reminding me I was still here, still alive, still capable of feeling something other than sorrow. I let the tide pull at my limbs, and for once, I did not feel like I was sinking. I felt like I could rise.

Lacy splashed me, laughing. For a moment, grief and joy stood side by side inside me, not enemies but companions. I realized healing is not forgetting; it is choosing to keep going even when the ache stays.

I whispered his name into the water. I didn't ask why anymore. I just said thank you. He was part of my story. He always will be. But I am learning to write new chapters. With shaky hands. With a heart still patched and tender. But writing, still.

I walked out of the waves shivering, sand clinging to my skin, and something inside me felt lighter. Not fixed. But open. Maybe grief and love are not opposites. Maybe they are the same thing, wearing different coats as time passes.

I know he keeps a piece of me. And I know I will carry a piece of him into every life I touch, every patient I sit beside, every moment I choose to stay when the world feels heavy. I will breathe. I will love. I will live.

Always and forever changed. But here. Still here.