To Zhe—
the quiet beginning of this story, and the reason it exists at all.
January 1st.
Your birthday.
Happy Birthday, and thank you for being born into this world, for existing at the exact time and place where our paths crossed. I don't know if you will ever read this. A part of me hopes you won't. Another part of me hopes you do, someday, without realizing it was meant for you.
In the span of two years of knowing you, I didn't realize how deeply someone could shape a life without ever promising to stay. Only now, looking back, do I see how much of me has been quietly altered by your presence. You are probably the turning point of my life.
Truthfully, as I write this, I still don't know what I'm supposed to say. I don't know how to begin, or where to end. It feels strange to dedicate an entire novel to a person who was never truly mine. But maybe that's exactly why, because nothing I say will ever be enough, and this is the only place where my words are allowed to exist freely.
This dedication may or may not be a confession. But here, between these pages, live all the words I never said out loud. All the pauses. All the restraint. All the feelings I swallowed because I didn't want to become a burden, or a regret, or a complication in your life.
From the bottom of my heart, I am glad we met. Even though my heart broke, meeting you taught me what it felt like to be seen, to be cared for in quiet ways, to feel warmth without certainty. You showed me versions of myself I didn't know existed. You changed my vocabulary, the way I express myself, the way I observe people, the way I understand emotions, and the way I look at life when it becomes unbearably heavy.
You taught me patience without preaching it.
You showed me maturity without forcing it.
And somehow, through you, I learned that choosing myself does not make me selfish.
If I had known that this was how it would end, I would have been braver. I would have said everything I kept locked away. Because nothing frightens me more than the idea of you forgetting me, of becoming just another name you once knew, another person erased by time.
And maybe just as terrifying is the truth that I will probably spend a lifetime unconsciously searching for traces of you in others, knowing full well that no one will ever be you. Not your voice, not your timing, not the way you existed in my life exactly when you did.
You would probably never hear me say, "I wish I never met you."
Even on the days when it hurts the most, that sentence never feels honest. It's not that I wish I never met you, it's that I wish I met you later. In a time where you were ready. In a time where circumstances were kinder. In a version of life where we didn't have to let go before we truly held on.
Is it selfish of me to hope you remember?
To hope you remember what we went through, who we were, and what we almost became? As you try to forget me, I find myself refusing to forget you. You became a scar, one that doesn't fade, only softens with time. A reminder that something real existed here once.
These are lessons I never expected to learn.
And if I were given the chance to relive all of this, knowing exactly how it would end, I would still choose it. In a heartbeat. I would choose the joy, the pain, the longing, the heartbreak, because what we had, no matter how brief or undefined, mattered to me more than anything else.
So here we are, strangers again.
Strangers, but with memories that are both sweet and devastating. You became a part of me in ways I never planned for, and in ways I will carry quietly for the rest of my life.
If we never meet again, I hope life is gentle with you. I hope you find peace wherever you go. I hope you become everything you want to be, even if that future no longer includes me. And still, a small, stubborn part of me wonders, will you think of me when someone mentions the moon?
This story exists because of you.
And even if you never read a single word of it, you will always live between its lines.
—With all the love I never said out loud