Good Without You
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Songs To Stories Volume IV
Inspired by: Mean by Taylor Swift
Some stories are about love. Others are about survival. Good Without You is about what happens when a person finally stops fighting for a love that was never real to begin with. Inspired by Mean, this novella is for anyone who has ever been told they were too much, too sensitive, or too difficult—when all they ever wanted was to be seen by the family who created them.
Lina spent her entire life trying to earn her father’s approval. No matter how much she excelled, no matter how kind she was, no matter how many times she swallowed her own needs to make space for his, it was never enough. And neither was she. Arlo Whitmore had one golden child—Michelle, the daughter he adored, the one who could do no wrong. And then there was Lina—the inconvenient one, the afterthought, the shadow trailing behind a sister who had always known how to play the game.
After years of being cast aside, Lina walked away. She built a life without them. She created success on her own terms, carved out a future where her worth wasn’t dictated by a father who never bothered to know her. But even from across the ocean, the ghosts of her past followed. Then, one phone call changed everything. Arlo was dead. And for the first time, Lina had to ask herself: Was she grieving a father she had lost? Or the idea of one she had never truly had?
Returning home means stepping back into the house where silence cut sharper than any word and where love was always conditional. Old wounds reopen in an instant—every dismissal, every comparison, every look that said she was never enough. Michelle is still there, polished and perfect, the daughter who can do no wrong, and Lina finds herself once again measured against a standard that was never meant to include her. But this time, she isn’t the same girl who once begged for scraps of affection. This time, she isn’t willing to shrink.
In the wreckage of loss, Lina begins to see her family with clear eyes. She recognises the patterns, the manipulation, the cruelty disguised as tradition, and she understands that the emptiness she carried for so long wasn’t her failing—it was theirs. Her story is no longer about chasing what will never be given. It’s about reclaiming what was always hers: her voice, her worth, her right to take up space.
The journey is not simple. Grief has a way of tangling itself with memory, making her question what was real and what she only wished could have been. There are moments when Lina aches for what might have been—a father who loved her, a sister who stood beside her, a family who saw her as she was. But with every step forward, she learns to let go of the illusions that kept her bound.
This is a story about resilience. About choosing to stop bleeding for people who never once offered a bandage. About learning to be good—not for them, not for anyone else—but for yourself.
Good Without You is raw, real, and deeply personal. It’s for anyone who has ever chosen peace over people who refused to love them the way they deserved. For anyone who has ever walked away from the wreckage of a family and decided to build something beautiful from the ruins.
