‘Where Does All the Love Go When You Leave Someone?’

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By Matthew Fegan

 

 

 

My first real love left me at 3am on a Friday night in May over the phone. I was drunk and cried so hard that I asked for my mother, and when he found that out, he said he felt bad because “people only call for their mother when they feel like they’re going to die.” And I think in that moment I did, or at least something inside me collapsed, something young and soft that believed love alone could hold the world together just because it was love. 

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Six months later he came back and said he loved me, said he was ready, and without even thinking I said “yes”. It was instant, like the pause in between us had never really been an ending, just a waiting room, and some part of me had always been sitting there, still dressed in hope, still convinced we would find our way back, because it didn’t make sense to me that something that had felt that intense could just vanish without returning to collect itself. 

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Five months after that I ended it over the phone again because I realised I was holding him to a version of the life I had imagined, and he had never promised me that version. He had never even asked to be in it, but I’d placed him there without question, like he belonged in the future by default, and it wasn’t fair because he was trying to love me inside a story he didn’t write. 

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I’ve always thought that to be loved is to be known, and I knew everything. I watched him closely and gently and constantly, and the moment I met him I felt something shift, like my whole life started leaning towards him in this subtle way, and suddenly he was the direction everything pointed in. Even when I told myself I was making choices for me, they always had his name somewhere in the corner, written in tiny print like a secret reason I never wanted to admit to. 

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I liked believing in fate because it gave me permission to not choose, and I’ve always been scared of choosing the wrong thing, scared of picking a path that ruins not just my life but my idea of love and his too. And if something is fate then at least the pain belongs to the stars and not to me. 

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But I’m learning that real love isn’t about fate, it’s about choosing. It’s about waking up and seeing every flaw and every fear and still saying “I pick you again”, not because the world said so but because I did. 

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I’ve never known how to end things cleanly. The first breakup I ever had was one I initiated, it was with a girl, and I cried for days because hurting someone made me feel like I was doing something unforgivable, like I was the villain. And in moments like that I think I’d rather be left than leave. 

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This one was different. When he ended it the first time, my friends celebrated and my family clapped because they saw how tired I was, how much the way I loved him emptied me out. And that’s not his fault, that’s just who I was, someone who believed love meant pouring everything out until I had nothing left, and even then, I’d have given more if it meant I could love him again. But after I broke up with him, I felt guilt, not because I regretted it but because I think deep down, I believed that once someone comes back to you, you’re supposed to hold on forever. Like the fact that they returned meant you owed them your whole heart until they decided to go, and the idea that I could let go first felt wrong. It felt selfish and cruel, like I was abandoning someone who had already chosen me twice.

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I was about to graduate and move to the city he lived in, and I told myself it was for me, but I think we both know he was always the quiet reason, the gorgeous little caveat at the end of the sentence. And I think I was okay with that. I liked the romance of it. I liked that he was stitched into the future without ever having to say he should be. 

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But then I was in France, and I had this moment where I imagined spilling my guts on the floor, everything that was inside me just laid out, I knew that at least sixty percent of it would be him. And that scared the fuck out of me, not because I didn’t want it but because I knew that if he did the same, I wouldn’t be there. Not really. Maybe a few scattered pieces, a nice memory, a kind touch, but not the core, not the centre. And that broke my heart more than anything because I knew he loved me. I know he did. We just loved different languages. I didn’t know what to do with that thought. I carried it around like a quiet ache, and before I could do anything with it, he came to me and said he wanted more “independence”, and I said “okay, have it”. 

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A few days later I left, not because I didn’t love him but because I couldn’t let us both stay in something that was slowly turning into something we never meant it to be. He used to say I moved too maturely, and that used to bother me because I don’t think that’s true. I love being 23 and still figuring out who I am. I love being out late with my friends. I love the chaos of not knowing what’s next. I love being alone when I want to be alone, and I love how full my life is even when I’m not in love. 

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I think what he meant was that I moved with clarity, that I felt things deeply and didn’t run from them, and maybe that was scary for him because I think he confused stability with dullness. But the life he described wanting was the life I already had, and I still had room in that life for love, but he didn’t know how to hold both.

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I think I will always carry love for him, not the loud kind, but the kind that sits quietly under everything, the kind that colours the way I look at the world. And I like to think that somewhere in his body there’s still love for me too, running through him like blood, even if he doesn’t talk about it, even if he wouldn’t admit it. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe not all love is meant to be lived out. Some of it just stays inside you and teaches you something about who you are.

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Some relationships don’t end because someone did something wrong. They end because the rhythm changes, because the timing is off, because the love doesn’t know where to go anymore. And that’s the hardest part, that love can still be there, still alive and burning, and it still ends. 

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Unless you don’t cut contact.

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There’s a particular kind of performance we rehearse in private, the one where we tell ourselves we’re in control. We write the script where we are calm, detached, unbothered, the kind of person who can handle sex without intimacy, attention without expectation, desire without consequence. Sometimes it works. Sometimes we convince even ourselves. But sometimes, quietly, disarmingly, the line between reclaiming power and tolerating disrespect gets blurry. We start calling it “casual” when it’s really unspoken hope dressed in indifference. 

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We let ourselves be touched by people who don’t see us and then wonder why we feel a little less real each time we leave. It’s not that we want love from the wrong person. It’s that we want recognition from someone who once knew us, or claimed to, and now only speaks the language of detachment. And it’s disorienting, isn’t it? To share something so intimate with someone who can’t even meet your eyes when the moment passes. To hear the language of closeness in a context of complete emotional vacancy. To be reduced to a body in the hands of someone who once asked about your dreams. 

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There’s no easy villain in this story. Just two people looking for different things in the same silence. There’s a comfort in pretending you’ve reached a higher plane of detachment. That your body can be in one place, doing something intimate, and your mind can stay two steps removed. You start saying things like “it’s just sex” and “I know what this is,” as if those words alone are enough to shield you from the side effects. Inside this strange little container of shared history and unspoken boundaries where the only rule seems to be: don’t make it real. Stay vague. Stay at surface level. Keep it moving. 

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It’s so easy to call it freedom. To tell yourself that having access without obligation is somehow evolved. That you’re empowered for continuing to say yes without demanding more. That being wanted in one dimension is enough, as long as you’re the one in control of when and how. But over time, the illusion wears thin. Something shifts. Not dramatically, not enough to call it a crisis. Just enough to make you feel slightly emptier when you leave. Slightly less whole. 

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There’s a difference between choosing not to care and learning to function despite being disappointed. One is agency. The other is adaptation. And I think for a long time I’ve been confusing the two. I’m not trying to make this a morality play. I don’t believe there’s one correct way to handle sex, or exes, or the blurry spaces between. But I do think we should be honest with ourselves about what our bodies and minds are actually experiencing, especially when it’s not what we hoped it would be. And if it starts to feel like you’re shrinking inside a situation you once felt powerful in, that matters. If your detachment starts to feel more like self-protection than confidence, that matters too. At some point, I want power to look like something else. Not just endurance. Not just silence. Not just withholding vulnerability because it’s safer that way. I want it to look like choosing not to stay in places where I have to pretend I’m okay with being reduced to fragments of myself, pieces that are palatable, convenient, and disposable. 

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If you’re reading this and wondering if it applies to you, maybe it doesn’t. Or maybe you’ve felt the ache of being almost wanted. Maybe you’ve been told “this is just how I am,” like emotional unavailability is a personality trait and not a choice. Maybe you’ve mistaken endurance for strength. 

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Matty x