A full year has passed and I remember the good like sunlight through a window, the way laughter lived easily in the pits of your stomach, the quiet comfort of shared silences, how hope once felt certain in our hands. I remember the bad, as well. The words that landed too hard like a plane crashing in the front lawn of my home, the pauses that grew heavy, the nights where understanding slipped just out of reach. Both memories stay. Neither cancels the other out. The joy doesn’t erase the hurt, and the hurt doesn’t undo the joy. They sit together now like pages in the same book—creased, reread, and honest. I don’t tear any of them out because remembering everything is how I learn, how I let go without pretending, how I carry forward not just what we were, but what I became. Sending your memorabilia wasn’t an invitation to reconnect—I wanted to give you the things that belonged to you because it was the right thing to do. I remember the stories you told me, of how much you lost in previous relationships and I didn’t want to contribute to that trauma. Because I am not the people of your past, I believed I changed you. There’s a part of you that has experience sincere love and true radical honesty: When I was soft; When I was abrasive; When I spend hours in the thickness of silence; When I created spaces for you to release the trauma that’s holding you from living your authentic life. And in the beginning, when I was begging you to stay with me and I understood why you wanted to run away because I could have been like the rest of them, but I couldn’t convince you otherwise, which made you repeat the cycle. Even when loving you was hurting me, I took many chances. Trauma was living inside of me too but I made the choice to break the experiences that convinced me that there are truly evil people—this is why I kept coming back to you. You are not a bad person. You are suffering just like the rest of us and when I was your age, I had no one to protect me. I made it this far but I have so many scars that I have to reveal to all of my lovers, so they know how to love me now.