Our almost will always haunt me

You left when your chapter ended. But I never stopped reading you.

I met him online. It was 2021. I was fifteen. He started texting me from an anonymous account. I didn’t know who he was, but I was so intrigued… We texted for a year, though not every day.

When he first texted me from that anonymous account, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t know who he was, and honestly, I didn’t care. He was just another stranger on the internet—nothing more, nothing less. But there was something intriguing about him. The way he spoke, the way he asked questions, the way he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. It was different.

At first, our conversations were casual, nothing deep, nothing special. I wasn’t attached—I couldn’t be. He was just a mystery, a nameless presence behind a screen. But somehow, even then, I found myself coming back, reading his messages a little more carefully, wondering who he really was.

Then, in 2022, he said he was feeling bad and deleted his account. A week later, a message popped up. “I came back for you.”

He gave me his real account—with his name. I was surprised. So we started talking every day.

There was something special about him. I wanted to know more. And he wanted it too.

He texted me all the time, all day. At first, I didn’t even notice it, but I started to like him. Really like him.

I was opening up to him in a way I never had before. He wanted to call me. After a few days, I gave him my number.

One summer night, he called. My heart raced. I was shocked, nervous, but I answered.

“Hey,” he said.

His voice was soft, warm. I liked the tone, the way he spoke. But at the same time, I was scared—he was still a stranger in many ways.

We talked for an hour. Then I had to go home.

On my way I was thinking about that call, I felt shy. I didn’t know what to expect. But his beautiful, mysterious voice was so nice to listen to. He sounded so good that I almost wished it would be the last time I ever heard him—so I could remember it exactly as it was.

When I got home, I saw a message from him. And just like that, we kept talking. Every morning. Every night.

We started calling every day. We laughed, we talked, we got closer. I felt something I had never felt before. That connection was unreal.

Sometimes, his calls came at the most random times. A few times, he called me just because he wanted to hear my voice. Even if he was surrounded by his friends, even if he was on a mountain, or at a party, he’d take a moment just to connect with me. And in that moment, I’d forget everything. His voice would make everything else disappear.

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” he’d say. It wasn’t something I had ever experienced before. It felt like we were two pieces of the same puzzle that somehow found each other in this vast world.

I never realized how much I needed someone until I met him. But with every conversation, with every text, I began to feel myself growing. Not just emotionally, but in every part of me. I was learning to be myself again. He made me feel seen in ways I never had before.

Before I met him, I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I felt lonely even when I was surrounded by others. Since I was a kid, there had always been this emptiness inside me. I was always the one who loved more, the one who cared too much. It felt like I never truly belonged.

I have a happy personality, but a lonely, aching soul. I don’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense, but when I met him—even just through a phone screen—it felt like the most real thing in my life. I had that feeling, you know… “Now I understand why it never worked with anyone else.” And that thought made me happier than ever. I had spent so much time trying to make people understand me, but they never did. But he did.

And that meant everything to me.

I got more attached by time. His humor was just like mine, and I loved it. When I told him about the past, about the scars left by others, he just listened. He didn’t try to fix me or offer empty words. He just… understood. And that meant more than I could explain.

“I’m not like them,” he once said. “I really like you.”

I believed him. And for the first time, I thought, maybe someone could actually mean it. Maybe someone could like me for who I was, all of me, the parts I kept hidden, the parts I thought no one would ever understand.

We talked for two months. He wanted to meet.

With each day, I found myself wanting more. Not just the late-night calls or the “good morning” texts. I wanted to be near him. To feel the warmth of his hand. To be able to see his smile in person, not just through a screen. But even as I wanted it, I held back. My mind kept reminding me—he was a stranger. He was still far away.

“What if he wasn’t who he said he was? What if all this connection was just a dream?”

“What if he’s not who I think he is?”

“What if he’s lying?”

“What if I get hurt again?”

I told him, “Not yet.”

So we kept talking.

Every night, he fell asleep on the phone with me. His breathing, steady and calm, became my lullaby. It started to feel like home. I had never felt at home before. And that scared me the most. Every morning, I woke up to a message from him. “Good morning, sunshine.” I had never been treated this way. I didn’t know how to accept it. But I did know one thing. I was falling.

I have to admit that I had a feeling something was wrong with him. Not in a bad way, but I could sense it. When he told me, “I don’t feel like I’m into living,” and said nothing more, even when I asked what was going on, I knew there was something deeper he wasn’t saying. He seemed lost—just like me. Just like I had always been.

So I kept thinking about him, about what was inside him, about what he needed to feel alive again. He didn’t talk about it much, so I didn’t know the details. But from the moment I met him, I could tell that something was weighing on him. And I was ready to find out everything, to be there for him. Because I know what it feels like to be lost, to feel like no one truly sees you. And I never wanted him to feel that way alone.

One time, he mentioned his ex-girlfriend. Later, I noticed that he still followed her on Instagram. We were talking about trust, and I casually said, “How can I trust someone who still follows his ex-girlfriend?”

In that moment, he removed her and sent me a message: “Now you can?”

It caught me off guard. I never actually asked him to remove her—I just said it playfully. But he did it on his own, just so I could trust him.

Sometimes we had arguments, but he wasn’t the type to argue—he didn’t like it.

“I don’t want to argue with you because I like you so much,” he always said. Every word from him made my heart warm.

I told him so many times, “Go and find someone closer, someone older. Don’t waste your time on me.” But he always replied, “I want only you, no matter how far away you are. That’s my choice.”

When he had a bad day or was in a bad mood, he did say, “I’m not going to text you for a while because I’m not in the mood, and I don’t want to be mean to you.” But he always ended up texting me anyway. And he was never mean to me.

One evening, he called me while I was taking a bath. What was supposed to be just a few minutes turned into hours. We talked about everything, “I’m sitting on a bench outside so we can talk in peace,” he said. “I’ll send you a picture of my dream house—where I want to live one day.”

A message popped up. It was a photo of a huge house, almost like a palace. It was beautiful. I loved how determined he was, how he had dreams. And over time, his dream became our dream.

We wanted to adopt a dog, travel to different places, and explore the world together.

He did always tell me, “The guys at work keep asking why I smile at my phone all the time. Well, it’s because I’m texting you.” And that’s when I realized—I was exactly the same.

One of his friends once asked him who I was. And he replied, “One day, I’ll marry her.” (I’m still waiting for that.) Butterflies filled my stomach, and a smile spread across my face.

I had nicknames for everything—for certain things, for special moments. And soon, he started using them with me too. We did laugh so much about it. He truly completed me.

But one of the most special moments was the night I had to go to the hospital. I texted him, letting him know I wouldn’t be able to reply because I wouldn’t have internet. When I was finally on my way home, a message appeared on my phone:

“I’m waiting for you. Text me as soon as you get home, baby.”

That’s when I realized—I had never had anything like this before. Such small gestures that meant everything.

As I drove through the city, watching the bright lights, the street lamps, and the towering buildings, I thought of him. Since that night, big cities remind me of him. Especially when the sun sets and the world lights up.

One of the things I loved most about him was how much he cared about his style. He did carefully choose his outfits, sending me pictures and asking, “Do you like this?”

Of course, I did.

I remember how much he loved hiking in the mountains. Once, he made a video called “Four Favorite Things.” It showed the mountains, parties, and his passion for collecting those small model cars—one of his biggest hobbies. And then, there was my picture.

He always saved my photos, added little heart eyes, and sent them back to me. He gave me the sweetest compliments, ones that made me feel truly special.

I know how much he loved nature. One summer night, he sent me a message saying he was sleeping under the open sky. He had set up his spot on a small hillside, and later, he laughed as he told me, “I kept sliding down all night, haha.” The next morning, he sent me a video of the sunrise. In the distance, deer wandered around him, making the whole scene even more breathtaking.

I wished I could have been there with him.

His voice became my favorite.

The way he did say my name, the soft, almost hesitant laugh when I made a joke. It was everything. It became my anchor.

At first, his looks didn’t matter. But the more I got to know him, the more I began to notice the little things.

The striking mix of blue and green in his eyes.

The sharp, confident lines of his nose.

The fullness of his lips.

The tousled brown hair that suited him so effortlessly.

The way he carried himself—his style always perfectly put together.

His height, towering yet comforting.

And his hands—strong, steady, familiar.

All my weaknesses, wrapped up in one person.

But his nature? That was my greatest weakness of all.

“You have the most beautiful ocean eyes,” he once told me.

He loved my mind. He loved me for who I was. He laughed with me in a way no one else ever had—or at least, that’s how it felt.

And even though I really liked him, I was terrified of getting hurt. The thought that nobody could ever truly love me still lingered in the back of my mind, haunting me. Even though I wanted to believe him, accepting it—trusting everything he said—felt impossible.

So sometimes, I tried to disappear. Sometimes, I didn’t reply to his messages because I was too afraid of getting attached, too afraid that if I did, I would only end up hurt. I kept trying to run away before it was too late.

But in the end, I always texted him back.

I know I wasn’t easy. It was hard with me. But he stayed. He kept trying to make me trust him.

He really tried. I felt so safe. Even though it was just a voice through a phone, it felt real. He became my comfort.

And I wanted to know everything.

His pain.

His past.

His weaknesses.

Even the darkest parts of him.

I wouldn’t have judged. I only wanted to love him the way he deserved to be loved.

Because maybe—just maybe—that could have been enough to save him.