valerie

the first time i met her was in some random discord server. when i saw her typing in chat, i'm honestly not even sure why i felt the need to respond to her so badly. something about her presence just stood out to me immediately.

we started talking casually in chat and after a few minutes i ended up sending her a dm with some silly message. after a few days of random conversations and dumb messages back and forth, we slowly started talking more and more every single day. eventually i started opening up to her about my struggles and things i normally kept to myself.

it turned out she was one of the most philosophical, understanding, and comforting people i had ever met. fun fact, she's actually the reason i even got into quotes and philosophy in the first place.

before we ever got close romantically, we used to have these long conversations about life. what we value in people. kindness. loyalty. dignity. emotional maturity. the way we viewed the world. looking back, i think that's one of the biggest reasons i fell for her so deeply. the way she cared about people felt genuine. the way she looked at life felt genuine.

with each day we became closer and closer until eventually we started becoming sweeter with each other naturally. we started saying things like “i love you” and “aww, i wanna give you the biggest hug ever.” eventually it all became part of our daily routine.

a month passed and things slowly became even more meaningful. our “i love you”s became more detailed. more emotional.

“i love you more than words could ever explain.”

“you’re my world.”

“you mean everything to me.”

and oh my god, the nicknames. they slowly became more and more intimate over time, from cupcake to baby. from baby to my sweet girl.

eventually it all led up to one question i asked her during one of our late-night conversations.

“what are we?”

that’s where everything truly started. we became more than just friends. we became two people who loved and understood each other on such a deep emotional level that it’s honestly hard for me to explain properly.

the entire talking stage was probably one of the most beautiful periods of my life. even now, i still admire the feelings i had for her. it genuinely makes my heart feel heavy whenever i think back to it.

as time went on, we were talking so often that our time zones didn’t even matter anymore. i was nine hours ahead of her. making a relationship work under those circumstances should have been impossible, but somehow, we made it work anyway.

we were making bolder and bolder moves. to the point where she quite literally told me:

“i mean i wouldn’t mind losing my v-card to you :3”

she was a freak. and somehow she turned me into one too. and trust me, that wasn’t even close to the peak of our freakiness later on.

but i think that’s part of why i became attached so deeply. not just because i loved her, and not just because she loved me, but because she understood me on a level i had never experienced before. she showed me feelings, emotions, and parts of myself that i never thought i would discover at that age.

everything was going perfectly. we talked every day, we helped each other through whatever we were struggling with, and we loved each other so much that she became the only thing on my mind.

after three months, i can genuinely say it was one of the happiest periods of my entire life. i had never felt that loved, that understood, that emotionally connected to another person before.

until one day, everything changed.

the night before, everything felt normal. nothing felt wrong, nothing felt different. we talked, laughed, said goodnight, and went to sleep.

then i woke up to a message i never expected to read. she told me we might be cooked.

she apologized over and over again. she told me things weren’t supposed to end like this. she told me she still loved me and that she still wanted to talk to me. but she also told me things would never feel the same again. and somehow that hurt more than if she had simply stopped caring.

for the longest time, she told me the reason was her parents. she said her dad didn’t want her dating me anymore. and for months i convinced myself that was the reason everything fell apart. i wanted to believe it, because the alternative hurt too much.

the relationship i had felt perfect down to the smallest detail. our communication was amazing, our understanding of each other was amazing, the effort was equal from both sides. everything felt right. that’s why it was so difficult to accept. there was no fight, no betrayal, no obvious reason.

one day i had the person i loved most.

the next day i didn’t.

months passed. i spent a lot of that time wondering what really happened, trying to make sense of it, trying to find answers.

eventually i reached out to her again, not because i expected us to get back together, not because i thought everything would magically go back to normal. i just couldn’t keep pretending she never mattered.

i sent her a long message. i thanked her for everything. for every late-night conversation, for every memory, for every bit of effort we put into making something impossible somehow work. i told her that what we had was genuinely one of the best things that had ever happened to me, that the impact she had on me changed me for the better, and that i still carried pieces of what she taught me every single day.

i told her i missed her. i missed her more than anything. and for the first time, i put into words something i had been carrying around for months.

“talking to you felt different.

it felt real.”

then i asked her one simple question. would you want to start talking again? i told her that if the answer was no, i would respect it completely. i just couldn’t stay silent and ignore how much she mattered to me.

her response was short. she told me she had a girlfriend. then she blocked me. just like that.

every question i had carried for months stayed unanswered. every fear, every worry, every night spent overthinking. all of it stayed with me.

for a while, i tried convincing myself that maybe i didn’t need closure, that maybe i should just move on. but the truth is that part of me still wanted to understand.

so a while later, i made one final attempt. this time i wasn’t asking to reconnect, i wasn’t asking for another chance, i wasn’t asking her to come back. i just wanted one honest answer.

i sent her a voice message. i told her that if she could answer one final question for me, i would appreciate it more than anything, not for the sake of getting back together, but for my own peace of mind.

and for the first time since the breakup, she finally answered. she told me she was sorry. she told me that even if things had worked out, she couldn’t see herself doing it anymore. the distance was hurting her more than it was healing her. she saw her current girlfriend every week or two. they lived fifteen minutes away from each other, they were in the same school district. and compared to that, we were separated by thousands of miles and nine hours of time difference.

for the first time since everything ended, i finally had something that felt like the truth. it wasn’t her parents. it wasn’t some mystery i needed to keep solving. sometimes two people can love each other and still not be able to make it work.

i spent months trying to get back in contact, months trying to find answers, months trying to hold onto something that had already ended. but eventually i realized something.

the worst loss is not losing them. it is losing yourself trying not to.