In 2019, you filled my Instagram notifications with likes.
I remember checking who you were, seeing your face, and thinking you were cute. I sent you a simple message to say thank you. It was not meant to be anything serious. It was one small interaction that could have ended after a few replies.
But it did not.
We kept talking.
At first, it was just getting to know each other—the usual questions, random updates, and little stories from our days. Then, without me noticing, our conversations became something I looked forward to. There were days when I would see your message and feel lighter. There were times when nothing important was happening, but talking to you still made the day feel less ordinary.
You came into my life a few months after my breakup.
I was not looking for someone to replace what I had lost. I was not even sure I was ready to feel anything again. But you were there, slowly and unexpectedly, and your presence reminded me that my heart was still capable of opening.
We did not see each other often. Maybe five times in all.
Most of what we had existed in conversations that lasted for years—through messages, small check-ins, and the kind of familiarity that grows when someone keeps showing up in your life. It was not grand, I know, and it was not a story other people would immediately understand.
But to me, it mattered.
You were sweet. You were kind. You treated me with a gentleness that made me feel safe. Sometimes, you were the cause of my high blood pressure—kidding aside. And somewhere along the way, I found myself falling for you.
For me, we were becoming something.
Maybe not in a way we ever named out loud, but in the way I waited for your messages, held onto your sweetness, and slowly made space for you in my life. I thought we were moving toward the same thing.
Looking back now, I understand that I was carrying that hope alone.
And that is the part that hurt—not that you were kind, but that I mistook your kindness for the beginning of something we were both choosing.
I do not blame you for being the person you are. You gave what you knew how to give, and I received it with a heart that was still healing. I made meaning out of our closeness because I wanted to believe that it was leading somewhere.
Maybe I was the only one who experienced us as something more.
That does not make the feelings less real. It only means I was loving from a place you never fully stood in with me.
It took me time to understand that.
But I do not want this letter to turn you into a painful memory.
You came into my life when I needed to remember that I could still feel something after heartbreak. You made me laugh, gave me years of conversations, and became a friend I still value.
We are good friends now, and I am grateful that we remained that way.
I will always remember the kindness you gave me—the conversations, the laughter, and the part you played in helping my heart open again.
You were never mine to lose. I simply had to let go of the future I once imagined for us.
Now, I can remember you without wishing for anything to be different.