In May, before all of this, while I was still in school, once we were sure about you coming, I left my phone in my dorm because you had my location. I did not want to make you suspicious, so I went to go buy you a ring. It was not to propose or anything, because I know that is for sure too soon, and I cannot give you a whole marriage or anything like that in the moment. I know you see it as a title, but to me it was a lot more than that. It was a promise about wanting to be together forever. To always support each other. To come home from a long day of work, unwind, eat together, talk about what happened in our days, and in the end just go to bed together and give each other warmth and cuddles. But yeah, it was a promise ring. I know technically we had only been officially together for five months, but to me, these two years felt like the time we really spent together. We always talked, flirted, talked about kissing, and talked about things we wanted to do together. I had this whole plan to kind of recreate our first real date: going to the movies, Olive Garden, the bookstore, building a LEGO set together, and then I was probably going to ask you at the beach. I am not really sure, because I do not think I had built up the courage yet to even ask you. It does seem crazy, but I really love you, and there is just no person I would rather spend my days with, even if we are so far apart. And that is another thing. In June, after my last day at UCSD, I knew I was going to get kicked out. I had not even built the courage up to tell you about that because it is so embarrassing, and I feel like a disappointment when it comes to that. But I applied to other schools. I applied to Kent. Do not worry, I will not just go, but I applied, I got in, and I would not have had to pay too much. While you were here, I was going to tell you about it, get your opinions, and I guess your permission. It sounded nice. I do not have a lot here in my life, and I would get to move somewhere far, make new friends, live in a whole new state, and be closer to you. No more “see you in a few months.” No more “can we call?” Instead, it could have been, “are you free Friday night?” Obviously I would not want to hang out all the time. We still need time for friends, school, studying, and every other part of life. But at least we would be closer. Maybe we could even study together. I do not know. But yeah, I was going to tell you while you were here and see how you felt about it. I have not been able to sleep. On Tuesday, I had a dream about you. We were at Disney together and we were happy. Honestly, since then, I have not been able to sleep more than two hours. I just cannot believe how things went down. Almost three weeks ago, we were talking all happily, a week away from you coming, and now I am sitting here typing this, just really missing you. I love you.

So I finally watched Tangled. I know Rapunzel is your favorite Disney princess, and I started going through the Hunger Games movies too. I watched the second Twilight movie, and I want to read through the Hunger Games books. I know you liked the one I got you, Sunrise on the Reaping, so hopefully I start the books soon. I have only ever read one of them before, back in high school. They would give us a free book for the summer, and one of them was The Hunger Games, so I read that a while back. But yeah, other than that, I hope you liked this. I know it is random, like the site and the gift. I do not know if you watched the video, but I talked about the gift kind of sucking. I just feel like I am not great at stuff like that, but I tried. In my head, before I ever did anything, it looked cool. I hope you liked the love book. I do not know if it was silly, but I saw it and a lot of it reminded me of you. I really miss you. You mean so much to me, and I still have a hard time understanding how we went from talking so much to barely talking at all. I know maybe you needed space, and I am not saying this to make you feel bad. I just want to be honest about how much it hurt to suddenly feel like I did not have a place in your life anymore. If it is really because you do not want to date, I understand that. I just wish we did not have to lose each other completely. Even being friends would mean a lot to me, because the time we spent together still matters to me. I really miss you, Karmen. I love you a lot. I wish we could see each other again, talk, and maybe find our way back to something softer than this. No matter what happens, I hope you know I made all of this with care. I love you.

I didn’t fall in love with you all at once. It started on August 10, 2024, with a random app, a random conversation, and somehow, a person who stopped feeling random almost immediately. We started talking almost every day, through messages, through calls, through Fortnite, through all the little moments that probably seemed normal at the time but became everything to me later. Before I ever got to see you in person, I already knew your heart. I knew you were funny, sweet, smart, patient, kind, loving. I knew you could comfort me without even trying. I knew you could listen to all the dumb things I had to say and somehow make me feel like they mattered. I fell in love with the way you care. The way you love your siblings. The way you prioritize your family. The way you love your mom. The way your heart reaches for the people you love. I love how strong you are, too. How you can solve things on your own, how you push yourself, how you strive to be better, even when things are not easy. I have always admired that about you— not just the soft parts of your heart, but the strong parts too. I fell in love with your mind, too. Your love for books and stories, Maybe that is why you always felt like a story to me— one I never wanted to end. And when I finally saw you in person, everything felt real. I remember the ride from the airport, you sitting next to me for the first time, and thinking distance had made me wait so long just to be that close to you. I remember your living room, the way you sat close to me, the way you looked at me with those bright, soft, beautiful eyes. And after all that waiting, I finally kissed you. I do not think I will ever forget that, because in that moment every message, every call, every game, and every day of missing you became something I could hold. I love your smile because it makes me smile. I love the way you calm me down. I love how being around you makes life feel good. I miss you. I miss talking to you. I miss your kindness. I miss the girl who felt like home before I ever even got to stand beside her. And I love you— because of your heart, because of your strength, because of who you are, and because even from far away, you became one of the closest people my soul has ever known.