Jace was in the kitchen humming something off-key.
The soft clinking of mugs. The kettle whistled. The smell of pan desal and coffee wafted through the apartment.
It was Sunday morning — their quiet ritual.
He wasn't mine. Not officially. But some mornings felt close.
I sat on the couch, legs curled under me, pen in hand, writing into a notebook I'd once sworn I wouldn't open again.
Not a letter. Not a message I'd ever send.
Just the words that still lived in the parts of me I tried not to show him.
There are things I still wish I could say.
Not to change anything.
Not to make him stay.
Just… to be heard.
I told him about the dreams once.
Elián, I mean.
How I saw him before I ever met him.
How we were always together in those visions — in fields, by rivers, in lifetimes that felt both ancient and real.
He'd listened, sort of.
Nodded with that quiet face of his. But his eyes didn't soften. Not like mine did when I remembered.
He listened the way someone hears about a place they'll never visit.
I wanted him to believe me.
Believe in us.
But he didn't.
Or maybe he couldn't.
And so, I stayed quiet.
Tucked that part of me away like a secret language with no one left to speak it with.
But even now — with years between us, and someone else brewing me coffee in a kitchen we shared — the words still rose inside me when the morning was soft enough.
If he only knew…
That I still think of him when the world turns gold at sunset.
When strangers laugh I remember how his smile made everything slow down.
When music plays something inside me curls in on itself — a mix of ache and memory and a love that had nowhere to go.
If he only knew…
That I'm not holding on because I'm waiting.
I'm holding on because some loves don't unroot — even when the soil has long dried up.
Not because I haven't grown.
Not because I'm stuck.
But because a part of me was carved in the shape of him.
And I've made peace with carrying that.
Jace sat beside me, handed me my mug without speaking.
I closed the notebook slowly.
He didn't ask what I was writing. He never did.
But sometimes I caught the flicker in his eyes — a question he didn't want to burden me with.
He was gentle like that.
Maybe too gentle for someone like me.
"Thanks," I said softly.
"For what?" he asked, sipping his coffee.
"For staying."
He didn't answer right away. Just reached over and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
I smiled, but something ached in my chest.
Because that's what made it different.
Elián always had one foot out the door.
Jace had both feet planted, heart open, waiting patiently for mine to catch up.
If Elián only knew…
That I dreamed of him less now.
But when I did, they still felt like home.
Sometimes I imagined what it would be like if he just showed up one day — at a crosswalk, in a bookstore, at a train station.
Not to come back.
But just to know that he once felt what I did.
That it mattered.
That I mattered.
Not as someone to miss for a season, but as someone whose soul once stood next to his in a place beyond time.
If he only knew…
That even after everything —
The vanishing.
The silence.
The slow unspooling of every promise he left hanging —
If he reached for me now…
I might still say yes.
And I hate that.
Because Jace was here.
Jace, who never left.
Jace, who saw every broken part of me and didn't flinch.
But love doesn't always make sense.
It doesn't always reward the one who stays.
And I think that's what scared me the most.
Not that I still loved Elián.
But that a part of me always would.
That night, I sat beside Jace on the balcony, our shoulders touching.
He told me about a childhood memory — something funny and meaningless and light.
And I laughed.
Really laughed.
It didn't erase anything.
But it added something.
A small layer of peace. Of softness. Of maybe.
Jace looked at me then — really looked.
"Where do you go when you get quiet like that?" he asked.
I hesitated.
Then said, "Somewhere I've been trying to leave."
He didn't push.
He just reached for my hand.
And I let him.
Because maybe healing doesn't mean forgetting.
Maybe it means finding someone who doesn't need to be everything — just someone willing to be there through the remembering.
I'll never send that letter.
I'll never say those words out loud.
But they live here — in these pages, in this heart, in this quiet love story with no ending.
If he only knew…
He could've had forever.
And even now — even with someone else's hand in mine —
Some part of me would've given it to him.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Even still.