The playlist started on loop, a fractured echo of everything I couldn’t say. Niki’s “Lose” bled into Harry’s “Falling,” the ache in the lyrics mirroring the hollow space where my chest used to be. Each song felt less like music and more like a bruise blooming on my ribs.
I scrolled through the list, each title a ghost of a memory. Shawn Mendes’ “Wonder” – a cruel joke. Wonder was gone. Replaced with a dull, grinding need to understand *how*. How he could just… vanish. The Weeknd’s “Until I Bleed Out” was a fitting soundtrack to the slow self-destruction I was conducting, replaying every conversation, every touch, every fleeting glance.
“Wasted Times” and “Often” followed, each beat a fresh layer of guilt. I’d convinced myself he was just… messy. Chaotic. But the messiness had always been *our* messiness. And now? It was just… gone. CL’s “+5 stars+” felt like a taunt, a glittering reminder of the height of it all, the dizzying euphoria before the fall.
The beat shifted, Snakehips and MØ’s “Don’t Leave” wrapping around me like a desperate plea. It was pathetic, I knew. I was writing my own tragedy, soundtracking my own heartbreak. Kygo and Miguel’s “Remind Me to Forget” – a cruel irony. I wanted to forget, to scrub the memory clean. But the wanting was the problem. The wanting kept it all alive.
Then came the Korean tracks, iKON’s “Hug Me” a phantom limb sensation. I remembered the way he’d held me, tight enough to suffocate the air from my lungs. Naughty Boy and Beyoncé’s “Runnin’” – the desperate chase, the futile attempt to hold onto something that was already slipping through my fingers.
Ava Max’s “Blood, Sweat and Tears” felt… appropriate. Everything had been a performance. A beautiful, brutal performance. Maejor’s remix of “Lights Down Low” was a slow burn, the bass thumping against my ribs like a second heartbeat. Evanescence’ “Bring Me Back to Life” – a desperate, pleading prayer to a god I didn’t believe in.
It ended with Rihanna. “Don’t Stop the Music.” The irony was a splinter under my skin. I wanted it to stop. I wanted the world to stop, to rewind, to give me a single chance to fix whatever I’d broken. But the music kept playing, a relentless, throbbing pulse that echoed the emptiness inside. The playlist wasn’t just a collection of songs. It was a map of my unraveling. A testament to the wreckage he left behind. And I was stuck, staring at the screen, listening to the ghosts of us dance in the dark.