Every milestone worth remembering carries your name. From the innocence of eighteen to the knowing of thirty-one, you were woven through my every season—even the ones you weren't in. Your absence was a presence of its own. "We're just friends, nothing more exists between us," you said coldly. So I waited. Friend by friend, day by endless day, while you remained blind to what consumed me. Friendship became my shelter and my cage. Yet here I am, destined to repeat this dance. "Do you need a man? Let me be yours." The thirty-one-year-old me demands to be recognized. If you saw me now with fresh eyes, if you truly looked— "You've become quite the troublemaker." Now that you're back, everything is finally beginning.