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I learned Spanish because Ryan taught me that I was allowed to open doors for myself.

The video remained paused in the kitchen while I balanced the plate on my knee and removed a sheet of cream stationery from the drawer.

I dated every letter.

Friday, May 1.

One week before Bliss and Cade’s wedding.

I placed the paper against the book resting on my thighs and began.

Ryan,

I’m going to see you next week.

Writing that feels strange after fifteen months of seeing you everywhere except in front of me. Sports pages, interviews, photographs from games, clips people send to the group chat as though I haven’t already watched them five times before anyone thinks to share them.

You look happy sometimes. I hope you are. You look lonely sometimes too, but that might be me searching your face for something I recognize because accepting that I no longer know what your expressions mean is harder than I expected.

I’ve been practicing Spanish again. Tonight, I learned that este pastel es para mí means this cake is for me, which is useful because I made myself a very small, structurally unsound lemon cake to celebrate owning ninety-eight percent of a building.

My mother owns the other two percent. Please don’t tell Lance.

I know you won’t read this, so trusting you with a secret remains extremely convenient.

I smiled and ate another bite of cake before continuing.

I used to believe the most important thing you gave me was the way you looked at me. I thought your desire was a mirror capable of showing me someone worth loving. When you looked away, I lost her because I never understood that I was supposed to become her for myself.

I understand now.

The greatest thing you gave me was a larger world.

You gave me books. Poetry. Spanish. Arguments about fictional people we treated like mutual friends. You made me curious about things I had already decided weren’t meant for me.

I’ve found new poets since you left. Some publish traditionally. Some post their work on social media and TikTok between videos of their dogs and complaints about rent. You would probably hate half of them on principle, then secretly save three poems and pretend the algorithm forced you.

I go to Devils games whenever Cade or Easton can get me a ticket. I’ve watched Rider play a few times too. He still looks happiest when nobody expects hockey to become the center of his life.

I haven’t been to Milwaukee.

That sentence sat on the page longer than the others.

I hadn’t attended an Inferno game. I hadn’t created an excuse to enter Ryan’s city or asked Briggs to arrange a coincidence. Watching through a screen hurt, but it respected the life Ryan built after leaving mine.

Next week, distance would stop protecting either of us.

I pressed the pen to the paper again.

I don’t know what seeing me will do to you. The last time we spoke was the hardest day of my life. Losing you devastated me, but seeing your love through the pain I caused you was worse.

I know what seeing you will do to me. It will hurt like hell because in my heart you are and will always be mine. I’ll still be glad you’re there—but we are strangers now.

I’m different now, Ryan. I don’t mean thinner, prettier, quieter, or any of the things I once believed made a woman easier to love. I take up more space. I have more opinions. I say them without rehearsing how everyone might react. I laugh loudly. I tell customers when they’re wrong. Last week, I informed a theater professor that failure to plan didn’t constitute permission to ruin my weekend, and he apologized so quickly I almost checked whether someone else had entered the room.

You would like me now. That sounds arrogant, but hell… I like that too.

I stopped writing and looked toward the window. I didn’t need Ryan to like the woman I had become. Wanting him to felt different now that I understood the difference between desire and survival.