"I am a part of all that I have met."
— Alfred Lord Tennyson
I remember the first time Daniel touched my wrist. It wasn't a moment meant to matter—just a casual reach across a table to pass a napkin, a brush of skin—but I memorized it like scripture. The warmth. The pressure. The way his fingers didn't hesitate. Most people hesitate when they touch me. Like their skin senses what their minds don't.
We were in a café. A quiet one, with low ceilings and chipped ceramic cups. It smelled like cinnamon and old furniture. Rain tapped against the window like it was too polite to knock properly. I was staring at the spoon in my tea, watching the swirl of cream dissolve into something unrecognizable.
He passed the napkin. His fingers grazed mine. I flinched half a second too late.
"You okay?" he asked.
I nodded. Smiled. Rehearsed.
There was always a delay in me, between what I felt and how I showed it—if I ever felt it at all. My smile arrived like a trained actor. Hit its mark. Tilted just right.
But something in me had frozen.
I remember thinking, don't ruin this. Don't show the glitch. Don't let him see how alien you are.
He didn't pull his hand back immediately. That surprised me.
I wanted to ask him why he didn't move away. But I didn't know how to make the question sound casual.
Instead, I asked, "Do you believe in instincts?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Like gut feelings?"
I nodded. Sipped my tea. Watched the spoon spin slowly in circles.
He said, "Sometimes. But not always. Instincts can lie, too."
I wrote that line down in my mind. Saved it. Like I did with all his words. His voice was the only thing I ever quoted.
The napkin he passed me had a small ink smudge on the corner. I remember tracing it with my thumb when he looked away. Just to memorize something that had touched him.
Later that night, I stood in front of the mirror for an hour. Trying to recreate the way I smiled when he touched me. I couldn't remember what it looked like. Only what it was supposed to mean.
I tried four versions of the smile. One with teeth. One just with eyes. One slow. One sudden. None of them looked familiar.
The letter sat open on the desk. Half-filled. Half-empty. Like a body missing one lung.
I wrote:
You touched me once, and I memorized it like it might be the last warmth I'd earn.
Then I stopped. Let the pen hang. Let the ink bleed.
Because I remembered the time I hugged someone too tightly and they looked surprised. I had learned hugs from TV. Measured the pressure. But I had no concept of comfort. Just symmetry. Timing.
Daniel never asked me to change. That's what made it worse.
Because I changed anyway.
I started noticing the way he folded his sleeves. The way he spoke to children—kneeling a little to meet their eyes. The way he never interrupted silence, like it was sacred.
I tried to become soft around him.
But softness isn't something you can learn. It has to be lived.
He once joked that I was a ghost in disguise. I laughed. Too hard. Too long. I think it scared him.
After that, he stopped calling as often.
He didn't distance himself. Not directly. But his messages came slower. He skipped our morning walks. He said he was tired more often. And maybe he was. Or maybe I was exhausting to be around.
That's when I realized something: I had been performing the entire relationship.
Not because I didn't care.
But because I cared too much to risk being myself.
The worst part was—sometimes I couldn't even tell when the performance ended.
The letter stared back at me.
To be honest with you, Daniel, means telling you that nothing I ever gave you was untouched by rehearsal. That even my stillness was learned from watching others breathe.
There were nights I tried to unlearn it all. I sat on my bed in the dark, refusing to move. Refusing to copy. But even that stillness was something I'd seen in a film once. I was never truly unscripted. Not even when I cried.
I folded the page again. It felt heavier now. Like it remembered everything I had erased.
I didn't sign it.
Not yet.
Outside, the moon slipped behind a cloud.
Inside, the drawer waited with a kind of patience I had never earned.
Not done. Not yet. But getting there.