I don't know why I'm writing this. You won't read it. Maybe that's exactly why I can. I'm not angry anymore. I'm not even sad in the way I used to be. It's something quieter now... like standing in a room where music used to play. We could have been so good. We could have been so many things. And yet we ended up being this. I need to tell you something. I'm not Al anymore. I'm not your Alex. That version of me... she ceased to exist the moment we did. I spent years slowly disappearing inside the relationship, wearing strength like armor, holding everyone up because I told myself you weren't ready yet. That you were still learning how to carry yourself, let alone the world. So I carried it for both of us. I carried it until my arms gave out and I didn't even recognize them as mine anymore. But she's gone now. And I don't mourn her. I'm Ro. Just Ro. The real one, the one that was always underneath all that weight, waiting for someone to finally put it down. I'm learning her. I'm learning that I don't have to bleed to prove I love someone. That love isn't supposed to leave marks. And you, my little girl... my Stepi. My unexpected rain. You came into my life like weather I didn't check the forecast for. My storm. My deep, dark ocean that I kept diving into even when I couldn't breathe underwater. You are cold to the bone, my love, cold in a way that goes deeper than skin... and yet you look like a ray of sunshine. You fool everyone. You almost fooled me. Almost. Your cold is so constant, so patient, that it stops feeling like cold after a while. It starts to feel like fire. It burns. It marks. It stays. And I think that was always your most dangerous gift... making people confuse your frost for warmth, your distance for depth, your wounds for walls that were just waiting to come down. And those eyes. God, those eyes. Blue like the ocean I drowned in, blue like the sky I looked at every morning when I woke up and thought of you before I even thought of myself. I will never forget your eyes as long as I live. I don't want to. They're mine to keep, even if you aren't. You grew up in a place where toxicity was the language everyone spoke. And you learned it fluently, not because you're cruel, but because it was the only tongue that ever made sense to you. That's what breaks my heart the most. Not what you did. But why. You don't know another way to love because no one ever showed you one. And I tried. God, I tried. I gave you everything that was in my hands, in my mind, in my body. Everything that lived in my heart. And none of it was enough, not because I was insufficient, but because you can't fill a wound from the outside. I can't save someone who doesn't know they need saving. I can't show someone their toxicity when that toxicity feels like home to them. I can't make you see the fog when you've lived in it so long you think it's just the air. My poor girl. So lost. So confused. Living in a cold, humid, rainy climate, longing for the warmth of summer but flinching every time the sun gets too close. From strangers to lovers. From lovers to something dangerous and sweet. From danger to war. From war to enemies. From enemies to something like death. And from death... to this. To grief. To a letter you'll never read. Our story was always twisted. Always melancholic. Beautiful the way storms are beautiful. From a distance. I can't do anything for you anymore. I've done everything within my power and more. And now I have to carry my life for myself. Not for you, not for anyone else. Just me. Just Ro. I hope one day the fog lifts for you. I hope one day you find your summer. But I can't wait in the cold anymore. I loved you. Entirely. Recklessly. In a way I hadn't even learned yet. And I'm finally, finally letting that be enough