DEAR AVAH, BY AZELIE.

Avah Julianna Cruz, to the one I love the most.

The day I saw you, you were like the most miserable person I've ever seen (no offense, my love :>), nearly driven into crying because she can't choose what book she has to buy that day. I'm normally not one to approach strangers, but there was something in you that made me want to approach you and help you with whatever it was that you're facing at the time—I even suggested one of my favorite books, the Notebook, although I've noticed that you haven't even opened it and had put it on a special display atop a bookshelf you have in your office in Seoul, but I didn't dare speak up cause I thought that it was something too important to you, even though I felt curious and a little happy that you've taken care of something that I had given you.

Friendly dates turned into dates, and then soon I found myself staying in Seoul too long, longer than I had intended for I had wanted it to be only a visit to you on my way to country hopping or something, but I didn't mind derailing my plans, as long as we could cuddle in our apartment and go wherever you wanted to go, or even just watching you work or be such a professional woman made me happy enough to stay for so long. You give my life so much meaning, and taking care of you had been nothing of a chore but it was something that I had enjoyed the most, and I had always looked forward seeing you and spending time with you so much.

The day that you finally opened up, I'm not gonna lie, it was an ugly sight to see. The day you told me that you had feelings for someone for fifteen years, more than the months that we had spent together, it was something that overwhelmed me so much. How can I compete with someone you had loved since you were seventeen? Since you knew love? How can I compete with someone that drove you to realize that you never really liked boys? I was so scared that by the time you were done telling me that story of yours, your feelings for her would come growing back and that I would lose you, the one I had been slowly loving the most—but you didn't. You said at that moment that with me, everything else had lost meaning. With me, she was slowly losing her existence in your life, she was slowly losing her status, and that your feelings for her was fading faster than you could comprehend. I didn't know if it was toxic, or if loving you was like red flags or red lights that kept flashing over my face, wanting me to leave you and run to the other direction—there was none of that. All I know is that I was happy with you, and when you decided that you were finally ready to try it with me, I was so overjoyed. I didn't care if it was slow, if our progress were slow, I didn't care all about that because I knew that love isn't like those things painted in storybooks, written in fiction novels of the sort; love is unique for every one, just as how I found you to be such a unique person, so much that all the others I've come to date and know had lost their meaning in my life. It was only you, it was only your love that completed me.

Avah, Avah, Avah.

Your name brings calm over me, your presence makes me happy, and being with you is a blessing that I had been graciously given, something that my soul had always yearned for, now found in you—and I wouldn't exchange that for the world. I trust you, that it will always be me.

I do hope our five years and counting could compete with the fifteen years you had given to her, or could even beat that. I'm quite competitive that way :>

I love you, my Avah. As Taylor Swift said, I am forever enchanted to meet you.

Till the end of time, till the rest of our lives, I'll keep loving you, no matter what.

- Your dearest Azelie.

P.S. marry me, cutie. I'll marry you in every country :>