The waves of love in my life

It was the scent of old books that brought it back.

Mira sat alone in a quiet corner of the public library, the same one she used to sneak into when she didn't want to be found. She was waiting for Aaron—he had a meeting nearby—and while she waited, memories crept in like shadows through open windows.

She closed her eyes…

and drifted back.

[Flashback – 4 Years Ago]

She was seventeen and lost.

Cold tile beneath her. A hospital bed she didn't remember walking into. IVs in her arm, dried tears on her face. She didn't look at her mother, sitting silent in the chair beside her.

But Lena was there too—curled in a hoodie, fingers red from gripping a notebook. She didn't say anything. Just handed Mira a folded page.

"If you're reading this, it means you survived. Again. And even if you don't want to, even if it hurts—you did. That matters."

Mira hadn't believed her. Not then.

But she never threw the note away.

[Present Day]

Now, she opened that same page—faded and folded in her journal—and placed it on the table in front of her.

Aaron arrived, coffee in hand. He sat beside her, smiling like the world hadn't broken her once. She smiled back.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Do you ever think about who you were before… everything?"

Aaron tilted his head. "Sometimes. I used to think silence was safer than honesty."

She nodded. "I used to think disappearing would hurt less than being seen."

He reached for her hand. "But we're not those people anymore."

[Flashback – 2 Years Ago]

Mira stood outside her first therapy session, heart racing. She'd almost turned back.

Inside, she confessed for the first time:

"I don't want to die anymore. I just don't know how to live."

The therapist didn't flinch. She just nodded and said, "Then let's start there."

[Present Day]

"I want to write about it," Mira whispered. "All of it. Not just the pain—but the pieces in between. The quiet victories."

Aaron squeezed her hand. "Then write it. I'll be here."

She looked at him—really looked.

This boy she met by chance.

Who fell for her scars, not in spite of them but because of them.

"I think I love you," she said, like it was a discovery.

He smiled. "Then we're on the same page."

And just like that, the past didn't feel like a trap anymore.

It felt like a prologue.