The first time I learned the difference between almost and forever, it was raining.

Not the gentle kind that kisses your skin and disappears, but the heavy, unforgiving rain that soaks through clothes and intentions alike. The kind that makes you run for cover even when you don't know where you're going. I remember standing there, watching water collect at my feet, realizing that sometimes love feels exactly like that?sudden, overwhelming, and impossible to ignore.

I didn't know then that love could arrive at the wrong time and still feel right.
I didn't know that two people could fit perfectly and still fall apart.
I didn't know that timing could be crueler than fate.

But I learned.

This is not a story about love at first sight. It's a story about love at the wrong moment. About two hearts that recognized each other instantly but weren't brave enough to stay. It's about fear disguised as logic, distance disguised as protection, and choices that seemed sensible until they cost everything.

Because the truth is, almost loving someone can hurt just as much as losing them.

People talk about love like it's simple. Like it's a straight line that begins with attraction and ends with forever. They tell stories about soulmates who meet at the perfect time, when both are ready, healed, and willing. But real love rarely waits for us to be prepared. It comes when we're tired, broken, distracted, or running from ourselves. It arrives when our lives are messy and our hearts are guarded, and it demands courage we're not sure we have.

And when we don't choose it?when we hesitate, delay, or walk away?we don't escape unscathed.

We carry it.

I carried it.

For a long time, I believed that loving someone meant losing myself. I watched it happen to the people around me?how love demanded sacrifices they never recovered from, how it asked them to shrink, to settle, to endure. I learned early that loving deeply meant risking everything. So I made a promise: I would never give my heart to anyone who could destroy me.

I didn't plan to meet you.

I didn't plan for the way your voice softened when you said my name, or how silence felt louder when you weren't around. I didn't plan for the nights I lay awake replaying conversations, wondering what you meant and what you didn't say. I didn't plan for the way my heart betrayed every boundary I set.

But love doesn't ask for permission.

It just happens.

We met in the middle of our becoming?when neither of us was who we used to be, but not yet who we were meant to be. You were still haunted by the past you never spoke about, and I was still hiding from the future I didn't know how to face. We recognized each other not because we were whole, but because we were both unfinished.

And somehow, that felt like home.