Page 273 of Before We Were

You're my muse, Leni.

Not just for the songs I'll one day write—though every single one will probably be about you in some way—but for who I want to be. You inspire the best parts of me, the parts I didn't even know existed.

Go to London.

Chase those dreams you've had since you were a kid. Write those stories that live in your head. Show the world what I've always seen in you. Do it all so one day I can say ‘told you so.’

I'll find my way back to you when I'm someone who deserves the way you look at me.

I know I have no right to ask anything of you. But maybe think of this like one of those long instrumental breaks in your favorite songs—the ones that feel like they're taking you somewhere new, but always lead you back to the melody you know by heart.

Please don't hate me. (Though I wouldn’t blame you if you did.)

N.

P.S. That first story you ever wrote, about Daisy and Archer? It's still my favorite. Always will be.

Tears stream down my cheeks,hot and relentless, carving paths of grief across my skin.

How could he ask that of me?

How could he think, after everything, that hate could ever touch what I feel for him?

Even now, with his absence burning a hole in my chest, hate is the furthest thing from what I feel.

If anything, I love him more—love him with the kind of desperation that makes stars collide and universes bend.

This isn't just a goodbye letter—it's Nate laying his soul bare on paper, showing me all the pieces of his heart that belong to me, even as he walks away.

My hands tremble as I reach under the bed, finding a blue box. Fresh tears blur my vision when I open it and find my first discman covered in stickers—the one I thought I'd lost years ago. Next to it lies a CD labeled"Nora's Mixtape #17 V2".

But what breaks me completely is what remains in the box:"Daisy and Archer's Adventures."

This whole time, he kept it.

A teardrop falls onto the worn cover.

On the first page, there's a post-it note in his messy scrawl:

Still my favorite.

Three words that somehow hold the weight of our entire history.

I set aside the box and take the CD and discman onto my bed, hands shaking as I put on the headphones. My heart races as I hit play.

"Take Me Away"by Lifehouse fills my ears, followed by“Wish You Were Here"by Pink Floyd, then"Never Let You Go"by Evermore,"Chasing Cars"by Snow Patrol and"Iris"by The Goo Goo Dolls.

As each song finishes and I inch toward track number eighteen, my pulse quickens with anticipation and fear. Every part of me aches to hear the song, to let his voice—or the memory of it—wash over me one more time.

My hand falls limp in my lap as the familiar warmth of him seeps into me. It's always there, that warmth. It's the part of him I can never quite let go of, the part that makes me want to hold on just a little longer.

I take a deep breath when the melody starts softly, piano keys falling like gentle rain, each note carrying the hollowness of everything left unsaid. Then his voice comes in, raw and honest and achingly beautiful.

"The echoes of who we are,

Were right there from the start.

Hidden in ashes of the past

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