When you stop hearing from him, assume it’s because he’s busy.

He’s could just be with his friends or family, or maybe he’s working. Perhaps he just forgot to reply. You don’t know, but you don’t take it personally, not quite yet. You still trust him. You still like him. There’s still hope in your heart.

After all, things were going well, weren’t they? You spent a lot of time together. Laughing, holding hands, falling asleep to the sound of each others’ slowing breaths, as you drifted asleep. Your heart fluttered for the first time in a long time whenever you saw him. It doesn’t just do that for anyone. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?

And yet, you still don’t hear from him.

You check your phone, hoping to see his name on the screen. But he never shows up. Not once. Radio silence. You consider reaching out to him, and asking him how he’s been, and maybe if he’d like to get together. But you know better than that.

You know how these things go.

You begin to pretend you don’t care. You tell yourself that you weren’t all that interested anyway. When friends ask what’s going on between the two of you, you simply shrug nonchalantly and quickly change the subject. You don’t want to talk about it.

After all, what is there to say? You could tell them you’re hurting and your heart is breaking, but you don’t want to seem weak. You don’t want to admit that you let yourself fall, that you let someone break down the walls you so carefully built, piece by piece, heartbreak by heartbreak. You built them to prevent feeling like this.

But after a while, you start to move on.

Slowly, but surely you do. You stop checking your phone to see if he texted you, you stop hoping it’s him every time you feel it buzz. You remove your text history, you delete his number. You talk to your friends about him. You admit you’re disappointed and heartbroken. You acknowledge that it’s over.

You stop playing into the what-if’s and could-be’s. You stop playing out the scenarios in your mind where you convinced yourself you messed it up, where it all went wrong. That if you only hadn’t said that one thing, the two of you would still be something. The two of you would still have a chance.

But then you realize that it wasn’t you. It wasn’t anything you said or did or didn’t say or didn’t do. And it wasn’t him, either. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. The truth of the matter is that some people aren’t made for us, and vice versa. Some love just isn’t meant to grow.

So you let the idea of him go, the idea of you and him as something.

And this isn’t to say it still doesn’t hurt for a while. It will. It does. You’ll pass coffee shops and restaurants the two of you used to spend time at, you pass the spot on the street where you had your first kiss together. You’ll remember him, remember the little moments, and feel the pain that comes with knowing it will never happen again, not with him.

But then you get stronger.

You’ll pass those places the two of you used to hide away, and instead of feeling pain, you’ll smile. You’ll pass that spot on the street where you two first kissed, and remember him for what he was, for what the two of you were: Fun, young and temporary.

Because you come to learn that being bitter will not help, that it will not change a thing. It will not do you good to make him the bad guy, or to negate what the two of you had. You sometimes wish he had said goodbye, or that he had given you an explanation. But eventually you stop wondering. You stop wishing.

You move on, with your walls down and heart open, ready for something more.