I don't really know how to start this. I have been sitting with these words for a long time, writing them, deleting them, starting over. Because nothing I write feels big enough for what I actually feel. But I promised myself I would try. So here it is.

The first time I saw you, something happened that I still cannot explain. It wasn't a thought. It wasn't even a feeling. It was more like something deep inside me went completely still, the way a room goes quiet when something important is about to happen. I didn't know you yet. But some part of me already did.

And from that day, I never stopped choosing you. Every single day, even on the hard ones, even on the ones where I didn't get it right. Life gave me other paths, Akshata. Other directions it could have pulled me. But my heart never looked twice. Every single time, without a moment of hesitation, it walked straight toward you. I stayed. Not because I had to. Because being near you felt like coming home to a place I had been searching for my whole life. That is the truest thing I know.

You once told me that my kindness felt like a warm hug to your heart. But sweet potato, you never let me tell you what you felt like to mine. You were the person who looked at me, really looked, and saw something worth seeing. On the days I was difficult, on the days I was messy and hard to love, you stayed. You wrote it down so I would never forget. And I never will.

I loved you in ways I was not always good at showing. I know that. I was not perfect. There were moments I fell short, moments I wish I could go back and do differently. But what I need you to know, what I need you to truly believe, is that my love for you was never one of those moments. That was always real. Always whole. Always yours.

You chose this road for us. And even though every part of me wanted to stay, I love you enough to walk it with grace. There is no anger here, love. Not even a little. There is only this quiet, aching tenderness that I have carried for you since the very first day, and I think I will carry it for a very long time after this too.

I hope the life ahead of you is gentle with you. I hope you wake up in the mornings feeling light. I hope you laugh the way you laugh when something really catches you off guard, that laugh that comes from nowhere and fills the whole room. I hope you get everything. Every single thing. I mean that completely, without a single drop of bitterness.

There will come a day, maybe a random Tuesday, maybe a rainy evening, when something small reminds you of us. A song. The way light falls at a certain time. The smell of something familiar. And in that moment, I want you to smile. Not with sadness. Just with the knowing that what we had was something genuinely real, and real things don't disappear. They just live quietly, somewhere deep inside you.