I would hope the first heartbreak anniversary is the only time

Host: The city had folded itself into night, its lights breathing in and out like the quiet pulse of a sleeping giant. The rooftops were slick with rain, and somewhere below, the echo of music from an unseen apartment bled softly into the air — a slow R&B melody, tender and aching.

On the edge of one such rooftop, beneath a string of dim bulbs, sat Jack and Jeeny. The sky hung low, a dark velvet canvas of clouds that threatened to cry again. Between them, two glasses of half-finished wine glimmered faintly in the flicker of light.

Jeeny’s phone rested between them on the ledge, the screen glowing with a quote from Giveon, his voice recorded in an interview:

“I would hope the first heartbreak anniversary is the only time you feel it, and then after that, you don't really even notice.”

The words hung there — part wish, part elegy — as the wind whispered through the night like someone softly turning a page.

Jack took a slow sip, then exhaled. His voice came low, steady, but heavy with memory.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? People talk about heartbreak like it’s an event. Like it has a start, an end, and a few milestones in between. But the truth? It’s geography. You never really leave — you just learn to stop reading the street signs.”

Jeeny: gazing out at the skyline “I think Giveon meant hope, not certainty. The wish that pain has an expiration date — that you don’t have to keep rehearsing grief forever.”

Host: The rain returned, soft and hesitant, dotting the ledge in quiet rhythm. The city lights blurred beneath its film, the skyline dissolving into watercolor.

Jack: “Hope’s dangerous like that. It makes you think healing’s a timeline. Like if you mark enough anniversaries, you’ll finally wake up untouched. But memory doesn’t age, Jeeny — it just changes costumes.”

Jeeny: turning toward him “So you don’t believe heartbreak fades?”

Jack: “It dulls, maybe. But fade? No. It just becomes quieter. Like a song that keeps playing in the background of everything else.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “And you pretend not to hear it.”

Jack: “Exactly. You talk louder. You work harder. You fill the silence with anything that doesn’t sound like her.”

Host: The light breeze shifted, catching Jeeny’s hair, brushing it gently across her cheek. She tucked it back behind her ear, her movements slow, thoughtful.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Move on? Pretend until pretending becomes real?”

Jack: “Maybe. But I don’t think you ever really stop feeling. You just stop fighting the fact that you do.”

Host: The rooftop lights flickered as thunder grumbled far away — distant, but present enough to remind them the storm hadn’t quite gone.

Jeeny: “Do you remember your first heartbreak?”

Jack: half-laughing, half-sighing “I remember the silence after it. The kind that feels too big for a single person to fill. I remember thinking love was a promise, not a gamble.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I know it’s both. And maybe that’s why it hurts — because it’s beautiful because it’s fragile.”

Jeeny: softly “That sounds almost hopeful.”

Jack: “It’s not hope. It’s realism dressed in poetry.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, the droplets gathering on the bottles beside them, sliding down like tears that had finally found courage. Jeeny tilted her face up, eyes closed, letting the water fall — unbothered, unashamed.

Jeeny: “I think Giveon’s right, though. The first heartbreak anniversary is the worst. The first time you count the distance between what was and what isn’t. After that, it’s not that it stops hurting — it’s that the shape of the hurt changes.”

Jack: “Changes how?”

Jeeny: “It stops asking for answers. It just... exists. Like a scar — familiar, but no longer tender.”

Host: Jack looked at her for a moment, the city light caught in her eyes, reflecting the shimmer of rain.

Jack: “You sound like someone who’s made peace with ghosts.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I just stopped mistaking memory for presence.”

Jack: “That’s harder than it sounds.”

Jeeny: “Of course it is. Love teaches us how to feel deeply, but heartbreak teaches us how to survive it. You need both to become whole.”

Host: The rain softened, the storm fading into drizzle. The sky opened just enough to reveal a sliver of moonlight, pale and trembling. Jack leaned back against the wall, staring at it, his expression unreadable.

Jack: “You think time heals, or do we just learn to carry it better?”

Jeeny: “Both. Time doesn’t erase — it teaches balance. The first year, you stumble. The second, you walk with it. By the third, you almost forget you’re still carrying it.”

Jack: “Almost.”

Jeeny: smiling sadly “Almost.”

Host: The wind picked up again, wrapping their silence in a kind of fragile warmth. The city below continued — cars, laughter, the heartbeat of strangers moving on with their own private ache.

Jack: “You know, I envy the ones who can forget. Who can just close the door and never look back.”

Jeeny: “Don’t. Forgetting isn’t freedom — it’s amnesia. Real healing is remembering without bleeding.”

Jack: quietly “That’s poetic.”

Jeeny: “No — that’s survival.”

Host: A long pause. The rain had stopped completely now, leaving the night washed clean, shimmering. Somewhere in the distance, a song — Giveon’s voice, maybe — drifted faintly through an open window, heartbreak turned melody, sorrow turned art.

Jack: “So what do you think he meant by ‘you don’t really even notice’? Do we stop missing, or do we just get used to the emptiness?”

Jeeny: “Maybe both. Maybe we learn that love doesn’t end when it breaks — it just changes form. Some stays as gratitude, some as warning, some as music.”

Jack: smiling faintly “And some as ghosts.”

Jeeny: “Yes — but even ghosts fade in gentle light.”

Host: The moon finally broke free of the clouds, spilling across the rooftop, bathing them both in silver — quiet absolution, fragile and real. The city shimmered below like a heartbeat at peace.

Host: “Heartbreak is never truly forgotten — it just becomes part of the rhythm. The first anniversary is grief’s final act, but after that, the pain folds itself into the music of who we are. We don’t stop feeling — we simply learn to sing it softer.”

And as Jack and Jeeny sat there in silence, the world breathed again, the sky cleared, and the ache between them — that shared, invisible wound — shimmered like the last note of a song that refuses to end, but no longer hurts to hear.