For a couple of weeks now, Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber have been running adjacent narratives in our Instagram feeds. The latter of course has been bursting with happiness post her second wedding to Gomez’s long-time ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber. (The typo in her Virgil Abloh-designed veil, however, still kills me). Gomez, on the other hand, has been teasing a slew of cryptic clues – and even erected a billboard in Times Square in New York – to plug the release of her new single “Lose You To Love Me”.

Gomez peppered pictures of her younger self throughout her Instagram feed with captions like “We’d always go into it blindly”, “I gave my all and they all know it” and “You promised me the world”. Perhaps the most telling post was a picture of a movie theatre with the words “I saw the signs and I ignored it”. As of right now – midnight in New York City and 3pm in Sydney – it’s starting to make a little more sense: Selena Gomez is back in a big way. She was heartbroken. But now she’s good.

We always did wonder what the post-Bieber break-up journey looked like for her. And here we have it. The heart-on-sleeve track sees Gomez at the piano as she mimics Taylor Swift’s thinly-veiled lyrical jabs at a past love and shares the same heartache-come-clarity messaging as Harry Styles’ new hit “Lights Up.” Raw and emotional, it’s obvious this is a song aimed at Justin Bieber.

The chorus “We’d always go into it blindly” reference the cyclical nature of their on-again-off-again relationships. “I needed to lose you to find me/ this dancing was killing me softly/I needed to hate you to love me.”

But then, are you ready? She sings “in two months you replaced us/ like it was easy/ made me think I deserved it/ in the thick of healing”, a direct hit at Justin’s very fast relationship with his now-wife Hailey.

Take a listen:

Bieber and Hailey began dating in June 2018 after he split from Gomez in March. By September, they were married. A source close to Gomez said after years of dating Bieber, the wedding was “a tough pill” to swallow initially but “it wasn’t enough to break her.” Eagled-eyed fans noticed Gomez deleted the only post she had of her ex-boyfriend in her feed in June, sending a clear message: Off the grid and out of her life.

Gomez ends with a final note. “And now it’s goodbye. It’s goodbye for us.”

I am still a little in shock.