Dear K, I still wonder if we'd ever cross paths again. You were the type of love that settled into everything. Not just my heart, but my habits, my daydreams, the way I looked at the sky when it was turning dark. I think a part of me is still waiting to find you in a crowded room, even though the rest of me knows better. Sometimes I think the cruelest thing about losing someone is that life keeps handing you beautiful moments and all you can think is how badly you wish you could tell them about it. The hardest part is knowing I didn't lose you all at once. I lost you slowly, every time I pulled away when I should have moved closer, every time I made you feel alone while you were always ready to stand right beside me. If I could carry one thing back to the version of me that still had you, it would be the knowledge that being loved by you was never something I had to earn, but somehow I still treated in ways like something that would always be there waiting for me. I understand that love can only survive being neglected for so long. And if there is one thing I wish I could tell you, it's that I'm sorry. Not for loving you, but for making you carry the weight of that love by yourself. I hope life has been gentler with you than I was. I hope you've found the kind of peace I kept accidentally taking from you. And even now, if I could give you one thing, it wouldn't be another apology. It would be the version of me that finally learned what you were trying to teach me all along.
