I don’t know who I’m speaking to more right now— you, or the people reading this. Maybe both. Maybe that’s the point. To you: I still hear you in songs. I still reach for you in quiet moments, still catch myself wanting to tell you things that don’t matter but mattered because you were there. Loving you didn’t feel dramatic or loud—it felt safe. Like exhaling. Like coming home without realizing I had been lost. To them: They don’t tell you that heartbreak can exist even when love was real. That missing someone can hurt just as much when no one cheated, no one hated, no one wanted it to end this way. Sometimes love doesn’t die—it just has nowhere to go. To you again: I didn’t know love could arrive so gently and leave such a bruise. I didn’t know I could miss someone who is still alive in the world, just not in my life. You changed the way I love, the way I ache, the way I understand myself. And to whoever is reading this: This isn’t just a love story. It’s a record of what it feels like to lose the person who made you feel less alone. It’s about holding memories like glass—beautiful, sharp, and impossible to let go of without bleeding. This is how we found each other. This is how I loved her. And this is how it broke me in ways I’m still learning how to carry. I’m scared that time is stealing the details from me. That one day I won’t remember the exact way that night felt—only that it mattered. But I remember this. That first night we were alone together, something in me finally unclenched. When you asked for us to belong to each other in that quiet, protective way—when you gave me a place where I didn’t have to be strong—I didn’t hesitate. I just melted. I curled into you and let out the biggest sigh of relief I’ve ever felt, like my body had been holding its breath for years and didn’t even know it. To anyone watching, it might have looked small. But inside me, it was everything. For the first time, I wasn’t bracing myself. I wasn’t performing or guarding or waiting for the moment I’d be too much. I could finally relax—inside my chest, inside my shoulders, inside the parts of me that were always tense without explanation. You whispered to me then. Soft words. Reassurances. Promises of care that weren’t loud or dramatic, just steady and warm. You made me feel seen in a way that didn’t ask me to shrink or harden. You made me feel safe enough to rest. And from that moment on, I wanted to be everything for you, too. I wanted to make you proud—not because you asked, but because loving you made me want to rise. I wanted to care for you the way you cared for me, to protect your heart the way you protected mine, to love you gently and fiercely all at once. That was the night I found you. Or maybe the night I found myself with you. And I didn’t know then that something so comforting could one day hurt this much to remember. I don’t really know how to talk to you anymore. I don’t know what I need, or what I’m allowed to want from you now. Some days I want to tell you everything—how much I miss you, how deeply you shaped me, how your absence echoes through my body in quiet moments. Other days I just want to sit in the feeling of you without saying a word, afraid that speaking might make you feel farther away. I don’t know if I’m supposed to let you go, or if loving you quietly is still okay. I don’t know which parts of us I’m allowed to hold onto and which ones I’m expected to release for the sake of survival. What I do know is this: You mattered. You still do. And even when I don’t know how to speak to you, I carry you with me—in the way I soften, in the way I ache, in the way I learned what safety could feel like. Maybe this chapter isn’t meant to be answers. Maybe it’s just proof that love doesn’t disappear just because the words get hard. I don’t remember the exact moment things changed. That’s what scares me the most. It wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t one clear mistake. It was quieter than that—like something slipping just out of reach while I was still holding on. I remember feeling it in my body before I understood it in my head. The safety wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t effortless anymore. I started bracing again, just a little. Holding my breath without realizing it. Wondering instead of resting. Nothing shattered that day. It just… shifted. And once something precious shifts, you spend a long time pretending it hasn’t—because the alternative is admitting you might lose the place where you finally learned how to breathe.