I never really had a language for grief. And if I did, it was only around death.

My grandmother died when I was seven. I was old enough to understand what had happened and experience the sense of loss, kind of. It was my first experience with grief. But my parents rarely talked about it.

My mom would cry quietly for the next few months in the bathroom. And on every major anniversary. But, aside from the funeral, I never actually saw her cry, just the aftermath. Puffy, bloodshot eyes with a little too much water around the edges. We weren’t allowed to mention it.

When I was 14 and experienced my first heartbreak, my mom told me to move on. He wasn’t right for me, things end, and life’s a bitch. He’s not worth the tears.

Chin up, it’s time to move on. And I live by that.

I didn’t cry when my dad left us for a new family. When my brother cut us off and went to live with our grandparents. When my sister moved away. When I did. Again and again and again.

So tell me why I’m crying now? Heaving, body shaking, snot bubbling sobs that make my back ache and my eyes go blurry.

It didn’t feel like telling him I’m moving would be this hard. I’ve said goodbye before.

But when I told him my job was transferring me 1,732 miles away, that I’d be leaving in two days, I think something died.

I’m not sure if I mean in me, in him, in the universe, in all of the above. But something died.

I think I killed it.

I almost couldn’t tell him. I’d waited until a few days before my flight. Even though he knew this was always part of the deal, we both did. I never stay in one place long.

He was staring at me across the table at our favorite restaurant. We come every week. He had a stupid little smile on his face as he dug into the korma we were sharing.

And then I did it.

I told him I’m leaving.

It happened right as he was ripping off a piece of naan for me. He had his arm outstretched, naan in hand, and I couldn’t accept it.

I didn’t deserve it.

I was tearing us apart, despite all the kindness and compassion and grace he’d shown me. Despite all our shared nights and inside jokes and honest conversations. He’d shown me what it feels like to be safe, to be vulnerable, to be loved for all that I am.

And yet here I am, telling him I’m leaving.

His smile dropped for a split second as he lowered his hand. I hardly heard what he said, something about how excited he was for me. I must’ve kept talking, he seemed to be responding to something I was saying, but the noise had drained from the room.

All I could focus on was his eyes. I couldn’t stop myself. The thinly veiled hurt there was overwhelming. It was like the light I’d always loved about him had been snuffed.

I’d never even told him I loved him.

All I could see was his sadness, his grief. It mirrored my own. It was a deep, aching wave of sadness. Grief started in my chest and shook my breath, pouring over me. I was barely keeping my own head above water in the middle of the dinner rush. I only half tried to hide it with a polite smile.

I managed to make it back to my apartment, although I have no idea how. I walked straight to my bathroom, tears already crawling down my face. I found myself in the shower and turned the hot water as high as I could bear it before my knees gave out. White-knuckle gripping them in a fetal position. Fully clothed. Sobbing like a child.

At some point my body hurt too much to keep crying. I turned the water off, peeled off my clothes, and laid on the bathroom floor, wrapped in the robe and towel I dragged off their hooks.

The movers knocked on my door at 3 p.m. the next day, right on time. But I was still on the bathroom floor. There was nothing I could do about how I looked opening the door: puffy, bloodshot eyes with a little too much water around the edges. They were kind enough not to mention it.

I stumbled through my last day in the city, spending most of my time in my empty apartment dodging calls and texts from him.

I stared at the texts. He was offering to help me move or to buy me dinner one last time before I left. I couldn’t respond.

It took me another day to muster up the courage to listen to his voicemails. I was sitting in the backseat of my Uber to the airport. The tears came again, silently this time but no less violent. I gasped for air between sobs as his slightly tinny voice came through the phone:

“Hey, it’s me again. You’re probably in the middle of moving or maybe even getting on a plane soon… um anyway, I wanted you to know I’m going to miss you… and, uh, I hope you don’t forget to come home every so often. I promise I’ll have dinner waiting for you when you do. Have fun on this next adventure.”

The Uber driver didn’t say anything as my sobs became more obvious, shaking my whole body with each breathe. What was there to say anyway?

That I didn’t want to leave.

That I’d never been happier in my whole life than the past year and a half.

That he’d been all I could think about from the moment we’d met and he’d never left my mind since.

That I love him.

But I can’t. Staying isn’t an option.

And I don’t know how to grieve him.