Amelia’s Journey from Heartbreak to Love

 Amelia Flores had an urge that all the pieces of her life had fallen into place. When Amelia turned 27, she lived in a nice apartment above a bakery in Astoria. She was teaching creative writing at a nearby arts charter school and planning her life with her five-year partner, Trevor. His name was Trevor. He was of decent height, spoke softly, and was the kind to get his favorite sour cherry jam, even if she didn’t ask for it. Together with their rescued dog Noodle, they worked on their Spotify playlists and promised themselves that consistent kindness could carve a clear trail toward enduring love. But life doesn’t play out predictably.

 Over the past year, as time went on, their relationship started to fall apart. The end wasn’t dramatic – no great arguments, no lies, just a slow wearing down of what used to matter to them. Their relationship made them break up and get back together three times. Every time they reunited, it was as if it was attempting to fix a broken vase with duct tape and convince them nothing had changed. Amelia did not slack off – continuing to go to therapy, have heart-to-hearts, and plan spontaneous get-togethers. She played around with her different sides, believing he’d stay as long as they changed. Sometimes, people come away, even if all doors are firmly closed. When it finally ended, she sat on the bathroom floor for an hour, allowing the icey grout to cool her cheek. The ticking of the radiator lulled her into letting herself realize that the hurt had left an emptiness in her chest. 

There had been two not-so-calm weeks before she finally turned to a dating app, propelled by defiance rather than genuine interest. Her first rounds of dating soon became a series of misadventures:A dentist who couldn’t resist flashing his numerous cats, a guy who spoke only in vague terms, and one man who disagreed with her belief in the moon landing. He pulled out the app from his phone and reinstated it. I deleted it again. Six months passed. Autumn slipped into winter. Amelia had not fully recovered but had somehow stopped crying in the grocery store. Casey, her friend, called her into a corner and offered, “Come to this wine-and-painting night—sometimes you need to see new faces.” Being in one breakup doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the final word on your future. But it wasn’t that simple. 

One evening, realizing she was all alone, she dialed up her father, and among the murmur and her mother’s recipe, she spoke up, “I’m scared.” And if I try again, would it turn around to bite me another time? Her father, normally prudently conservative with his watch mending, was more outgoing than she anticipated. “Try again,” he said. I cannot rightly say that it will succeed, << It might not. But what if it does?” Once a week and just a touch of caffeine later, her thoughts were laced with the matchmaking website Kindred, which hadn’t occurred to her in minutes. Compatibility rubs, like financial market indicators over each profile, floated above the ones recommended by the matchmaking algorithm with disconcerting certainty.

 The algorithm first showed her someone she clicked on with a shocking 98% compatibility rating. Name: Lucas Rae. Graphic designer. Amateur banjo player. He was evicted from a trivia night party after secretly shouting too loudly. She laughed out loud. She found his eyes thoughtful and a little mischievous and paused momentarily. He did not meet any criterion of physical beauty, yet he appeared to be the sort who would risk becoming soaked to save an injured snail. She wrote: “Overcompetitive whispering? That is hysterical. Could you shoot me a message about it? It took her two days to hear from him. Eventually, he confessed that he’d been dormant on the site and almost discarded the email. Somehow, her message and even her name got his attention and induced him to change his mind to delete the email. 

They messaged all night. They planned to meet at Lucinda’s, a warm café amid their neighborhoods, the next night after two days. Amelia wore a plum sweater, but the shoulder had a blob of coffee in it. He arrived before her by five minutes and apologized for the mismatched socks. He handed her a paperback of a book he felt she would like: A Field Guide to Getting Lost: A Book by Rebecca Solnit. She stayed for three hours. They shared stories about their worst travel mishaps, gave their favorite pizza toppings, and talked about how music transformed normal moments into films. She felt the strangest thing: calm. Their relationship began developing between them as gravitational forces. Weekend walks. Midnight texts. Homemade risotto. Lucas had, too, tasted heartbreak, losing a partner who eventually turned into a roommate.

 They related using the unspoken pauses in between one another’s words. During one of February’s cold evenings, rolling in a blanket beside Lucas on the couch, Amelia asked him one question: “Did you ever go to The Dandelion Bar on 36th Street?” Lucas blinked. “That was my Friday-night spot. For years.” I was within two blocks of the bar. I went every week.” For four years, they had dwelled in the same city. Buying things from the same local shop. Grasping lattes from the irritated barista every week. Incredibly, they had failed to meet even though they were living next door to each other—until a series of coincidences brought them head-on to do so. Years passed. Amelia is relaxing in a bright kitchen, watching their two daughters build a makeshift fort with cushions and boxes. Lucas can be seen outdoors, letting psycho-emotional steam out on an especially recalcitrant tomato plant. A dog is under the table, and soft banjo music softly streams from some Bluetooth speaker. She continues to take time to teach students, but it is only part-time now. 

She still writes words down on paper, and sometimes she casts her eyes back over the message that began it all: “I want to hear that story.” In these essays on heartbreak, she talks to her students, reminding them that peace can cultivate new beginnings. That this love nearly devoured you could have facilitated the journey to one that would heal you. She comforts her students with “Heartbreak doesn’t make you broken.” That is proof you dared to love deeply. For Amelia, the other side of loss is more certain than ever, with surprising possibilities.