Issa Not Pressman

“You were never Nadine. You’re just Issa”

I used to believe I was the kind of woman a man would never get over.

Not because I was perfect—God, no. But because I gave all of me. I stood beside him in silence, when no one clapped. I loved him loudly when the world whispered doubts. I thought that counted for something.

I thought I was Nadine.

Not the actress. But the idea. The muse. The one who makes someone better. The one who is loved in public and respected in private. The one people root for, idolize, call empowered. I thought I was that kind of woman in his life—the one he’d grow with, not outgrow.

But turns out, in the public’s eyes, I was just Issa.

The scandal. The “other girl.” The unwanted footnote in someone else’s love story. Scrutinized. Judged. Hated for a story I didn’t even write. They threw words like knives—“toxic”, “karma.” They stripped away my humanity and left only a villain in their fairy tale.

They looked at her and saw the one who deserved forever.
They looked at me and saw the reason forever ended.

It didn’t matter that I loved him too. That I knew his quiet fears. That I held his hand when the lights were off and the world was too loud. It didn’t matter that our laughter was real, or that our time, though brief, felt infinite. What mattered was that I wasn’t her. I was never going to be her.

Because no one wants to settle down with the girl they think ruined the dream.
They settle down with the girl they dreamed of.

And maybe he did love me—but not the way I needed. Not the way people write about. Not in the way that says you are it. I was a chapter. She was the ending.

It hurts.

It hurts to watch him glow in a love that looks like redemption. It hurts that I became a shadow in someone else's sunshine. And it hurts most of all that I let myself believe—just for a moment—that I could be the girl worth choosing in the end.

But I wasn’t. I’m not.

I am Issa. The girl they don’t write songs about. The girl they don’t fight for. The girl who learned—too late—that sometimes, love isn’t enough to rewrite your reputation.

Sometimes, the world already decided who you are before you even get to speak.

And that’s the heartbreak no one sees.