DEAR AZELIE, BY AVAH.

Azie, my love,

Always know that I love you, so much.

I first met you out of a library expo habang nagpapakaheart broken ako five years ago, when you found me having trouble over what books I should buy with the money I brought, nearing a state of mental breakdown when you approached me and helped me buy what book I could read in my past time. Cheesy man, you recommended me The Notebook, and you'd be mad that I'll tell you I haven't read that book yet, because the copy I bought that day with you, I haven't even opened. Ipapaframe ko nga yon if I have a chance, charot.

Anyways, I remember us exchanging contacts that day, and then you would call me when you have the chance, and then I would call you when I'm breaking down silently over a little apartment I had rented when I went to Korea after we had met—I had told you all about her, told you how I loved her for the fifteenth year at the time, and yet nung kinukwento ko sayo yung lahat about sa kanya, my feelings seemingly decreased until it was gone, and there it bloomed yours. I had fallen in love with you before I even knew it, and all it took for me to acknowledge it was when you showed up in my office in Seoul at the time and then brought me out into a "friendly date" as you had called it, although at the time I silently wished it was something more.

Oh, how I rejoiced so much when after all the pining, all the unsaid feelings of the two of us slowly coming into the light, how I rejoiced when we ended up together, and it was like magic, like a love story that had reached it end, and I am at my happiest when I'm with you. You are my safe space, my happy place, the one I love the most, after all.

That day, at her wedding, after you had heard my argument with Asteria as well as the others, I wondered how you felt, knowing that my memories were once brought to life, knowing that she had feelings with me? Knowing that if I haven't met you that day, if we haven't crossed paths at that library and I had continued pining over her then we would eventually end up together, I wondered what did you feel? Would you cry? I hated the thought of you crying, I hated the thought of me being the one to hurt you when all that you've done is be there for me and love me unconditionally even though when you had come into my life, I had been broken, and you were the one who put me back together?

I love you. So much.

The way you hold me when I feel down, the way you're still here after everything that happened, the way you stayed even though you knew that I might still be in love with her, somehow I see myself in you. Somehow you're all I've dreamed about, somehow I know, even in the littlest things or in our highest of highs, I know you're the one for me.

Azelie, mahal na mahal kita. Even if I try, no words can express how much I'm so in love with you. No words can express how I want to stay with you until the rest of our lives.

I love you, Azelie. As cheesy as this sounds, through this letter... will you marry me, my love?

- Avah, your soon to be wife.