to my first -… . -… ., i’m sorry for leaving you, and i’m sorry for all the things i did that hurt you, especially the things i probably never realized were hurting you at the time. i met you during a year when i was still so immature when it came to love. i thought loving someone was something i could figure out as i went, but the truth is, i didn’t know how to handle something as real as what we had. whenever things got heavy, i ran. whenever i felt overwhelmed, i chose to leave instead of staying and trying to understand you. and looking back, i realize how selfish that was. i was so caught up in trying to protect myself from the weight of everything that i forgot you were carrying feelings too. you were a person who cared about me, and i didn’t always treat your heart as carefully as i should have. sometimes i wonder what would’ve happened if i had been a little more mature back then. if i had stayed when things got difficult instead of walking away. if i had communicated instead of shutting down. if i had understood that love isn’t always supposed to feel easy, and that sometimes you have to choose to stay and work through the uncomfortable parts. the worst part is that we actually let each other go. there was no dramatic ending where one of us completely stopped caring. we just slowly became two people who used to mean everything to each other, and eventually learned how to live without being part of each other’s everyday lives. but even after all this time, there are still so many little things that somehow lead me back to you. every math class. anything blue. fried chicken. whenever i see rian. every show involving the multiverse. cookies and cream. table tennis. buldak. random little things that probably mean absolutely nothing to anyone else, but somehow carry an entire memory for me. it’s strange how someone can leave your life but still exist in so many tiny pieces of it. sometimes i’ll be doing something completely normal and suddenly remember something about us, and for a second, it feels like i’m back there again. back when talking to you was normal. back when i didn’t have to wonder whether you still remembered me. back when i could tell you about the smallest things without thinking twice. and i don’t regret not begging you to stay. i think, in some way, letting you go was the only thing i could do at the time. even if i didn’t want to. even if a part of me wanted to ask you to stay forever. i didn’t want you to stay because i begged you to. i wanted you to have the freedom to choose your own life, even if that life eventually stopped including me. but i do regret that my last “i love you” wasn’t as genuine as it should’ve been. because if i could go back, i would want you to know that there really was love there. maybe i didn’t know how to express it properly. maybe i was too young, too scared, too confused, or too immature to understand what i had while i had it. but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. you were my first in so many ways. my first experience of loving someone and being loved by someone in a way that felt completely new to me. and no matter how much time passes, i don’t think i can erase that part of my life. i hope you’re happy now. genuinely. i hope you love the freedom you have. i hope you found people who make you laugh until your stomach hurts. i hope you have friends who understand you, people you can rely on, and a life that feels lighter than the one we had back then. and if you ever look back at us, i hope you don’t only remember the bad parts. i hope you remember the stupid conversations, the random moments, the little habits, the laughter, the comfort, and the version of us that existed before everything became complicated. you moved on, and eventually, so did i. maybe that’s the part of growing up that hurts the most. realizing that sometimes you can still care about someone while knowing you’re no longer meant to be together. realizing that someone can be incredibly important to you and still become someone you only remember from a distance. i don’t want to change the past anymore. i just wish i had been better while i was in it. maybe we were only meant to be a chapter in each other’s lives. maybe we met at the wrong time, when neither of us knew how to love properly. maybe somewhere along the way, we were supposed to learn from each other and eventually become strangers with memories. but sometimes i still like to think about the multiverse. because if there really are endless versions of us somewhere out there, maybe there’s one where we stayed. one where i knew how to communicate. one where i didn’t run whenever things got heavy. one where we grew together instead of apart. and maybe, in another universe, we got it right. maybe there, you stayed. maybe there, i knew how to make you feel loved. and maybe there, we never had to learn what it feels like to lose each other. but in this universe, i’m just grateful that i got to know you at all. so thank you for being my first. and if you ever wonder whether what we had meant something to me— it did. more than i knew how to say back then. maybe in another universe again, right?
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