Ronnabelle Lora

Rebound Girl | Pages: Short Story | Fiction

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ABS-CBN Studios

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873009947101.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>I didn’t notice when it started. Or maybe I did—but it felt too good to question.</p><p>There’s a certain look men get when they’re heartbroken. It’s not obvious. It’s quieter than that. It’s in the way they pause before answering simple questions. The way they laugh like they’re trying to remember how. I always noticed that look. And somehow… they always noticed me. The first time, I told myself it was just kindness.</p><p>Paolo looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Everyone in the office knew his girlfriend left him, but no one really talked to him about it. They just gave him space, like heartbreak was contagious.</p><div><br/></div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873011669102.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div> </div><p>I didn’t. I sat with him at lunch. “You don’t have to pretend with me,” I said. I don’t even know why I said it. It just came out.</p><p>He looked at me like I had handed him something fragile he didn’t know he needed. After that, it was easy, too easy.</p><p>He opened up. I listened. He leaned in. I stayed. Somewhere between “Are you okay?” and “I’m here,” we became something more.</p><div> </div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873019734703.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>I remember the first time he held my hand. It felt… warm. Needed. Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. When he left, he was gentle.</p><p>“I think I’m ready to love again,” he said.  I smiled. “That’s good.” I didn’t ask, “With who?” I already knew the answer.</p><p>The second time, I thought I’d be smarter.</p><p>Marco was different. Louder. Stronger. But heartbreak humbles everyone the same way—it makes them honest. With me, he didn’t have to be the funny guy. He told me things he said he never told anyone.</p><div><br/></div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873022174406.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>“I don’t know who I am without her,” he admitted one night. I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “You’ll figure it out.” What I didn’t say was: And I’ll be here while you do.</p><p>Somewhere along the way, I started to feel important. Not just liked—but needed. There’s a difference. When someone needs you, you become careful. You show up softer. You choose your words. You make space. You become… accommodating.</p><p>Marco stayed longer than Paolo. Six months. Six months of inside jokes, late-night calls, and quiet moments that felt like something real. So this time, when he started pulling away, it didn’t make sense.</p><p>“You’re amazing,” he told me. I smiled, because I knew what came after that word. Amazing never means chosen. It means appreciated.</p><p>When people at the office started calling me the “transition girlfriend,” I laughed.</p><p>“What does that even mean?” I said, shaking my head. But later that night, alone in my apartment, I repeated it quietly.</p><p>“Transition.” Like I was something you pass through. Like I was never meant to be the destination. By the third time, I saw it happening in real time.</p><div><br/></div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873023532707.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>Adrian didn’t even try to hide it. The heartbreak was still fresh, sitting right there between us in every conversation.</p><p>“I’m not ready,” he told me early on. I nodded. “I know.” And I did know. So why did I stay? That’s the question I couldn’t answer. Not then. But I can answer it now, because it felt good to be chosen—even temporarily.</p><p>Because when someone is broken, they don’t expect much. And when you exceed those expectations, they look at you like you’re something rare. I liked that look. Maybe more than I should have.</p><p>Adrian was the one who made me stop. Not because he hurt me more. But because I started noticing something I hadn’t before. Myself. I noticed how I adjusted. How I listened more than I spoke. How I made space for his pain but quietly set aside my own needs.</p><p>How I never asked, “Can you love me fully?” because I already knew the answer. And I stayed anyway.</p><div><br/></div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873025026608.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>One night, after he left my place, I sat on my bed and asked myself something I had avoided for years:</p><p>If I stop being this version of me… will anyone still stay? If I’m not the one who understands everything… If I’m not the one who’s endlessly patient… If I’m not the one who makes things easy… Will I still be lovable? Or am I only loved because I’m convenient?  That question stayed with me longer than any of the men did.</p><p>It followed me into work, into quiet moments, into conversations where I found myself about to say, “It’s okay” when it actually wasn’t. For the first time, I tried something different. Something small. Something terrifying.</p><div><br/></div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873026418509.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>The next time a guy sat across from me—the same tired eyes, same quiet sadness—and started opening up. I felt the familiar pull, the instinct to lean in, to soften, to become the safe place. But this time, I paused.</p><p>“I’m sorry you’re going through that,” I said. And then I added something I had never said before.</p><div><br/></div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873028436610.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>“But I think you just have to grin and bear it. Wallow in it alone until you’re tired, then you can tell yourself you can move on. Kaya mo ‘yan!”</p><p>He looked surprised. Maybe even a little disappointed. But I didn’t rush to fix that feeling.  For once, I let someone sit with their own emotions without trying to carry them for them. It felt… wrong. Like I was being cold. Like I was becoming someone I didn’t recognize.</p><p>And for a moment, I panicked. Is this how I lose people? But something else happened too. I felt… steady. Not needed, not essential, but whole.</p><p>The silence that followed wasn’t filled with late-night messages or emotional dependence. It was just silence. And instead of feeling empty, it felt honest. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t in the middle of someone else’s healing story. I was just on my own.</p><p>Weeks passed. Then months. No one leaned on me the same way. No one needed me like before. And I won’t lie—it was lonely. There’s a kind of validation in being needed that’s hard to replace. But slowly, something shifted. I started noticing different kinds of attention. Quieter. More equal. Attention that was less intense—but also less fragile.</p><p>Then I met Daniel. And the first thing I noticed was what he didn’t bring. No recent heartbreak. No emotional wreckage. No unfinished story. Just… himself.  It felt unfamiliar.</p><div> </div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/177873030386411.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><div><br/></div><p>There were no late-night confessions about someone else. No heavy silences waiting for me to fill. He asked about me. And when I answered, he listened. Not because he needed something from me, but because he wanted to know.</p><p>On our third date, I caught myself waiting for the shift, a moment where I would become the support system. The healer. The one who will hold everything together but it didn’t come.</p><p>Instead, he said something simple. “I like how you think.” Not “I need you”. Not “You make me feel better”. Just… “I like you.”  It shouldn’t have felt so new. But it did.</p><p>One night, as we were walking, he reached for my hand. And for a split second, I felt that old instinct again—the one that said, Be soft. Be careful. Be everything he needs. But this time, I didn’t shrink into that role. I just held his hand, as myself.</p><p>Later, lying in bed, I thought about the question that used to haunt me. If I stop being soft, will I still be lovable? And I realized I had been asking the wrong thing.</p><p>It wasn’t about being less kind or less understanding. It was about not disappearing inside those things.  I didn’t need to stop being warm. I just needed to stop being the place where people healed on their way to someone else.</p><p>With Daniel, I wasn’t the in-between. I wasn’t the transition. I wasn’t the safe place people leave. For the first time, I felt like I had arrived somewhere too. Not because someone needed me but because someone chose me fully.</p><p>Without timing being the reason it would end. And maybe that was the difference all along. Not who I was. But when I allowed myself to be chosen.</p><div> </div><div><br/></div><div><em>* Images enhanced using AI filters<br/></em></div><div><em>* All characters and events in this work are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or actual entities is unintentional and coincidental.</em></div>

<p>Pages: In this “Rebound Girl” fictional story, a woman realizes she keeps becoming a temporary emotional support for heartbroken men until she learns to value herself beyond being needed.</p>

Pages: In this “Rebound Girl” fictional story, a woman realizes she keeps becoming a temporary emotional support for heartbroken men until she learns to value herself beyond being needed.

Rebound Girl | Pages: Short Story | Fiction

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Rebound Girl | Pages: Short Story | Fiction

ABS-CBN Studios,

Precious Maya

Published May 15, 2026 02:02 PM PHT

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