By the time you read this, I imagine the silence between us will already feel like a season. And still, I needed to write you, because not every goodbye is sharp. Some slip in softly, like dusk in the hills of Barranquitas, where the air once smelled like rain and roasted coffee, and we swore we’d never leave.

Do you remember the day we arrived in Puerto Rico? Chicago still clung to us like the last stubborn snow. Caramelo was whining in the crate, and we were laughing—God, we were always laughing back then, weren’t we? You looked out the plane window like the whole island was a promise written just for us. I thought I was walking beside fate. I thought I could carry all of our dreams, even when they grew heavier than I could hold.

But love, I learned too late that no matter how strong your back is, you cannot carry someone’s heart if they no longer wish to hand it to you.

You will always be one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had. Not the kind who lectures, but the kind who shows. You taught me how to listen—not just with ears, but with skin, with breath, with silence. You taught me how to please a woman with reverence, not performance. And you taught me—slowly, painfully—how to draw the line between devotion and self-abandonment.

You showed me what I would never accept again, and what I would always crave. That paradox will haunt me, but I thank you for it. You were the mirror I needed, even when I hated the reflection. I thought love was enough. I thought my love could be enough for both of us. But now I know love can’t be sustained on sacrifice alone. And I am done pouring from a well that never fills.

This isn’t a letter of blame. If anything, it’s a confession: I loved you harder than I should’ve, longer than I knew how to, and quieter than you deserved. And I will always love you. I say that without regret. Even now. Even after everything.

You will always live in the softest part of me—tangled up in the palm trees we kissed under, the warm nights on the balcony, the way Caramelo curled up between us like he belonged to the story too. I hope you still watch the sunsets from that hill. I hope the wind still plays with your hair the way my fingers used to.

But this is where I leave.

And this, my love, is the hardest lesson of all: knowing when to let go, even when your heart is still holding on.

Goodbye.

Yours once,
Isaias