It's always you

Prologue: Love rarely arrives when we expect it. It doesn’t knock politely or announce its name. It slips in through the cracks—between unsaid words, glances held too long, or a quiet laugh shared under a fading sky. Sometimes, it blooms suddenly, wild and radiant like spring after a long winter. Other times, it grows in the stillness, so slowly we only recognize it once it’s already taken root. This is not a story of grand gestures or perfect timing. It is a story of two people who collided at the wrong time—maybe more than once—but still found their way back to each other. Not because fate insisted, but because something softer and more stubborn lived between them. Something worth holding onto. Before everything unraveled, before the world asked them to choose between safety and truth, they loved. And that love—however imperfect, however unexpected—changed everything. I didn’t know her name yet. Just the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled, like she’d been holding that light inside her for too long, and it had finally slipped through. I didn’t know if she believed in soulmates or late-night walks or the kind of love that feels like safety instead of fire—but I wanted to. I didn’t believe in love at first sight. Still don’t. But I believe in recognition. In the feeling of seeing someone and thinking, Oh. There you are. Like something in me had been waiting for her, quietly, all this time. And maybe that’s all it was—one quiet moment. A look. A smile. A maybe. But maybe—just maybe—those are the moments that change everything. Because when she turned to leave, and her eyes met mine one last time, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years. Hope. Not loud or dramatic. Just a soft spark, flickering gently in the space between her and me. A whisper in the back of my mind saying: This isn’t over yet. And it wasn’t. That was the beginning. The first breath. The before. And everything that came after? That’s where the story really begins.