It was never because the fire in my heart dimmed or the devotion I carried for you wavered. It was never because I found someone else who made me forget your laugh, or because time finally convinced me that what we had wasn't real.
I loved you with a ferocity that surprised even me. I loved you with the kind of intensity that poets spend lifetimes trying to capture in verse, the kind that makes people believe in soulmates and destiny. You weren't just someone I cared about, you were woven into the very fabric of who I became.
You were my first conscious thought when consciousness crept back in those tender moments between sleep and waking. Before my eyes opened, before I remembered my own name, I remembered yours. You were there in the drowsy haze of dawn, a warm presence in my mind before the day's responsibilities came flooding back.
And at night, when the world grew quiet and the weight of the day settled on my shoulders, you were my final prayer. In those sacred moments before sleep claimed me, I would send wishes into the universe for your wellbeing, your happiness, your dreams. I prayed for good things to find you, for your burdens to feel lighter, for your heart to know peace.
The universe presented me with crossroads, with other paths I could have walked. There were other hearts that reached for mine, other hands that wanted to hold me, other voices that whispered promises in the dark. I had opportunities that glittered like fool's gold, chances that seemed safer, easier, more guaranteed.
But in every moment of decision, in every instant where I could have turned away, I chose you. Not because it was simple or painless or logical. I chose you because my heart recognized something in yours that felt like coming home. I chose you because when I imagined my future, you were there; not as a pretty addition to my life, but as its very center.
I chose you when it felt like flying, when your smile made me believe in magic and your touch convinced me that fairy tales were real. But I also chose you when it felt like drowning, when loving you meant watching you pull away, when I had to learn the difference between being wanted and being needed.
Even when choosing you meant breaking my own heart into pieces I wasn't sure I could reassemble. Even when it meant standing in the rain outside your life, hoping you'd invite me in. Even when it meant accepting crumbs of affection and calling them a feast.
Through the long stretches of silence that felt like punishment for crimes I never committed, I stayed. When days turned into weeks without hearing your voice, when your responses grew shorter and more distant, when I could feel you slipping away like water through my fingers; still, I stayed.
I learned to love you in a language you didn't speak, to pour my heart out in whispers you couldn't hear. I became fluent in loving someone who couldn't love me back the same way, who saw my devotion as pressure instead of gift, who needed space where I needed closeness.
The pain became a companion I grew accustomed to, a dull ache that lived in my chest and reminded me that what we had was real, even if it was unbalanced. I wore my heartbreak like a badge of honor, proof that I was capable of loving someone more than I loved my own comfort.
Through sleepless nights when I replayed every conversation, searching for signs I missed or words I should have said differently. Through the agony of watching you choose others while I remained constant as the northern star, always there, always hoping, always believing that someday you'd see what was right in front of you.
So if one day you notice my absence like a song that's stopped playing, if you reach for your phone expecting to find my name and find only silence instead, if you wonder what happened to the person who loved you without condition or reservation, understand that my leaving was an act of love too.
Maybe I'll disappear because I finally realize that my love, however pure and fierce and true, had become a weight you carried instead of wings that lifted you. Maybe I'll step away because I discover that sometimes loving someone means giving them the space to breathe without the pressure of constant devotion.
Maybe I'll vanish because I finally understand that you need to find your happiness in places I can't follow, with people who can give you what I never could. Maybe I'll learn that true love sometimes means removing yourself from the equation, even when it feels like removing your own heart.
In my absence, I hope you find the peace that my presence; with all its intensity and need and overwhelming care, could never provide. I hope you discover a lightness you didn't know you were missing, a freedom to be exactly who you are without the weight of someone else's expectations or dreams.
I hope you find someone who loves you in a way that feels easy and natural, whose affection doesn't come with the complicated history we carry, whose heart beats in rhythm with yours instead of racing to catch up.
I hope you remember the good parts of us; the laughter that came so easily, the moments when we understood each other without words, the times when my love felt like sunshine instead of storm clouds. I hope you keep those memories like treasures and let the difficult parts fade like old photographs.
Because when everything else has been said and done, when the dust settles and the story of us becomes just another chapter in both our lives, this truth will remain: all I ever wanted was for you to be happy.
Not happy with me, necessarily, though I dreamed of that more nights than I can count. Just happy. Fulfilled. At peace. Living a life that sets your soul on fire and fills your days with joy.
If that happiness exists in a world without me, then I'll learn to find beauty in that sacrifice. If your best life is one where my love doesn't complicate things, then I'll teach my heart to let go, however much it protests.
Because that's what real love does; it wants what's best for the beloved, even when what's best feels like the end of everything beautiful and painful and meaningful you've ever known.
So if one day I'm gone, carry this with you: you were loved. Completely, desperately, hopefully, endlessly. You were loved by someone who saw magic in your ordinary moments and found poetry in your everyday words. You were loved by someone who would have chosen you in every lifetime, in every universe, in every possible version of this story.
And that love; that fierce, stubborn, impossible love, was real. It mattered. It changed me. And maybe, in ways you might not even realize, it changed you too.
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