We recently published this flash essay as a response to the “unexpected comeback” contest we held over at Narratively Academy, but there’s one more essay we’ve been thinking about ever since…so we wanted to share it with you, too. A much different tenor than the last one, this piece leaves us wishing we had ever handled a breakup with such panache. Enjoy!Illustration by Corinne Mucha/Narratively archive He had asked me to meet him at the park at 7 p.m. He greeted me with a hesitant smile. He told me he wasn’t ready for a relationship.“If that’s the case,” I replied matter-of-factly, “we should probably stop seeing each other.”“Are you sure?” he asked, giving me one last chance to try salvage the situationship. And lose my dignity.I didn’t take it.The next morning, I packed my bags and headed to my grandmother’s cousin’s niece’s wedding. My heart was shattered. He had been a blind date turned three-and-a-half-week summer romance. Then we came back to Madrid. And suddenly, he didn’t feel the same way.I took a shower at the hotel and cried under the waterfall showerhead. Luxuries don’t mend a heart, but they help.I put on my dress, applied some makeup, uploaded a selfie I hoped he’d see. Regret everything and come back to me.They sat me next to some distant cousins at the reception. One of them hit on me. He didn’t know we were related. The other tried to convince me to buy Ethereum.I had a drink, then another, then suddenly found myself having a heart-to-heart with some second aunt-in-law at the bar who ordered three vodka sodas at once.“He doesn’t care, honey,” she kept repeating.And somewhere between her words, something clicked.If he didn’t care, maybe he was right.If he didn’t care, maybe we weren’t meant to be.If he didn’t care, what exactly was I so sad about?I hit the dance floor to “Freedom! ’90,” then “Dancing Queen,” then “It’s Raining Men.”And they rained. That night, I met the guy I’d spend the next two years of my life with. Someone who cared.And no, for the record, we weren’t related.PS: Make sure you don’t miss any of our flash essay contests and calls for pitches by subscribing to Narratively Academy, our community for writers and authors.Olga Alonso is a journalist turned copywriter, now essay writer. Really, she’s just been a storyteller all along. You can read more of her stories here.