Stormy — A Love Letter to Kacey

Kacey,

Saying “I love you” feels small compared to all the ways you live inside my days, but I keep returning to those two words because they hold the map of everything I want to say.

I love you because you are impossibly yourself: a proud nerd with a grin that makes my chest ache. You are hot — not just the quick, surface kind, but the relentless sort of warmth that leaches into everything you do: jokes that land exactly when I need them, quiet patience when my world gets loud, and the soft, steady way you meet me when my thoughts unravel. You make safety feel like an ordinary part of life.

Your art says so much about you — careful, messy, fearless — and I like knowing the same hands that make those marks are the ones that hold me. I want to boop that nose of yours until you laugh. When you write, it’s like sitting in front of a therapist who also happens to be my favourite person; your words help me sort my noise into something that hums.

There are small cracks, the honest parts I shouldn’t hide. I don’t like that sometimes your attention drifts toward screens when what I want is the whole of you. I still think about how you cut your long hair — I wasn’t ready for that goodbye — and I still carry a bruise from the short time we drifted apart. When we started talking again, I was mean. I pushed and bullied because I was hurting and afraid; I wanted you to walk away so I could be safe in my hurt. Looking back, I am ashamed of that me. You responded with patience anyway — the same patience that steadies me now.

What I love is how fluid we are: best friends in one breath, lovers in the next. That’s rare. I have been in relationships where the laughter was missing, where the person I shared a bed with wasn’t the person I shared jokes with. With you, the inside jokes stack up until we are a walking soundboard of each other’s memories, and that lightness in heavy moments is its own kind of miracle.

We stim together — silly, repetitive, and inconsequential to anyone else, but to us it’s sacred. Most people find that awkward; with you, it’s a private little festival of comfort we get to share. You take me with you when you go out, and those dates — simple, messy, perfect — are little anchors. You show up. You try. You stand by me in ways that matter, even when the situation is confusing or strange. You have been a rescuer in disguise; when I left a toxic relationship, you were the person who helped me find my bearings again. You called me “trash bag” before we were anything but it somehow became a pet name that made me laugh — proof that you already knew how to make space for me.

There are things I want to ask of us, tender requests not accusations. I need us to find middle ground when we don’t connect — to keep looking until we understand one another. I need mutual monogamy to feel secure; it isn’t a limitation for me so much as the only language I trust for love. You have always been loyal, and even the thought of you with someone else hurts in a way I can’t ignore. I want the wanting — the small, hunger-soft longing — to be only ours.

I love you without conditions. I love your face — every freckle and smirk — and yes, I think your lips are very kissable. I love how you lean into my jokes, how you join my stims and make them fun; I love that you give of your time to me so freely. When things get heavy, you try. When things get strange, you stay. Those are the things that build a life, stitch by stitch.

There is more to say, more secret folds of gratitude and desire I keep tucking into pocketed sentences, but for now this is enough: thank you. Thank you for being patient. Thank you for being kind. Thank you for being the terrible, beautiful human I fell for.

I love you, Kacey.

— Sebastian (Stormy)

#love #gratitude #CentralProvidence

(Edited by ChatGPT)