This story is told from two perspectives — Tyler's and Kz's. Each chapter title will indicate whose POV it is. You'll see the same world through two different hearts. 💙
Foreword
An Author's Letter to Whoever Finds This Story
I started writing Serendipity by Chance on the day I broke up with my ex.
That day, I couldn't cry. I didn't want my parents to see my pain, and maybe, I didn't want to face it either. So I gave my pain a place to live. I built a story — a world where my heartbreak could breathe without breaking me.
At first, it was both a wound and an escape. For months, I wrote through silence. I was always seen as strong — the kind of person who keeps smiling even when she's falling apart inside. No one at work noticed how much I was quietly hurting. And maybe that's why I had to write — to let the hurt exist somewhere, even if it wasn't through tears.
When I finally shared the story with a few close friends, they cried in my place.
They felt what I couldn't say.
I had just lost five years of my life — a relationship I thought would last forever. I was thirty-three, and the future I had carefully planned vanished overnight. People around me were getting married, moving forward. And I was standing still, wondering why I wasn't enough.
I hated the quiet of my room because silence meant remembering the words that tore me apart — that I was replaceable, inconvenient, unworthy. He left without goodbye. Two days of nothing, no message, no closure. When I found out he'd gone to Manila without saying a word, something in me broke. That's when I decided to end it — the relationship, and the waiting.
And when he didn't fight for me, I realized that was closure enough.
So I turned that pain into something else — into KZ and Tyler.
They are both me.
KZ, the version of me that still smiles through the ache — who loves her dogs more than herself, who finds warmth in small things, who's learning to live again.
And Tyler — the part of me that gave up, that lost hope, that still wonders if being saved means you're worth saving.
Together, they became my way of healing.
What I want readers to feel through them is this:
There are many kinds of pain — especially the quiet kind that no one notices, the kind that hides behind laughter and "I'm fine." But even quiet pain deserves to be heard, and even broken people can find each other in unexpected ways.
This story is about that — about meeting someone who helps you heal without trying to fix you. It's about believing, again, in the gentle kind of fate.
If you take one thing from Serendipity by Chance, let it be this:
It's okay to believe in hope even when the heart feels full of darkness.
Because love — real love — doesn't always arrive when we're ready.
Sometimes, it comes when all we've learned is how to survive.
For me, healing now means peace. The kind that's quiet, safe, and steady. The kind that lets you breathe without fear of breaking again.
And if this story were a message in a bottle, drifting across time and tide, it would say this:
"Don't be afraid. It's not over. Life has a way of surprising you — and maybe, one day, you'll believe in love again."
To whoever's holding this story, thank you for giving it a moment of your time.
If you've ever loved deeply, lost quietly, or carried pain you couldn't name — this story is for you.
May you find a little piece of peace here, or at least the courage to believe that love — in whatever form it takes — will find you again, just as it found me when I needed it most.
With love,
– wistfultales