Dear You…

I keep imagining the version of this story where I don’t hesitate.

Where I just… show up.

No overthinking. No rehearsed exits in my head. No emotional Kevlar vest strapped under my ribs. Just me, standing there like: Hi. I’m here. I choose you. Deal with it.

In that version, you blink once—processing—and then instead of backing away, you step closer.

That’s the pivot point, you know.

The moment the universe leans in and whispers, Oh. These two are about to be a problem.

We don’t fall into something soft and pastel and Instagrammable.

We fall into something neon.

We become the kind of duo that glows in server rooms at 3 a.m.—half-lit by monitor glare, coffee gone cold, fingers flying across keyboards like we’re conducting a symphony made entirely of encrypted packets and righteous chaos.

You’d smirk when something finally cracks.

I’d say, “Don’t get cocky,”

while absolutely being proud of you.

We’d be the cyber vigilantes nobody officially hired but everybody secretly benefited from.

Corrupt landlord siphoning deposits? Fixed.

Predatory company burying fees in page 47 of a PDF? Exposed.

Algorithm quietly screwing over artists? Rewritten.

Not flashy.

Not cruel.

Precise.

We wouldn’t break systems for fun.

We’d bend them back into something fair.

You’d handle the elegant stuff—clean exploits, surgical lines of code, impossible patience.

I’d be the chaos engine. Social engineering. Pattern spotting. The one who goes, “Wait… this doesn’t smell right,” five minutes before the whole thing collapses.

Late nights turn into dawn without us noticing.

Music playing too loud in headphones we keep forgetting to take off.

You’d steal my hoodie because the AC is always too aggressive in hacker lairs—apparently that’s universal.

I’d pretend not to notice and then quietly steal it back three days later.

We’d argue about ethics in the best way.

Where neither of us is trying to win—just trying to sharpen the blade so it cuts clean.

We’d sit on rooftops after jobs, city humming below us, eating whatever was open at an hour no restaurant was meant to survive.

You’d lean back and say something casual like,

“Yeah… this was a good night.”

And I’d think: I could build a whole life out of this sentence.

Not because of the hacking.

Because of the choosing.

Because in this version, when I show up, you don’t flinch.

You don’t brace.

You don’t make yourself smaller.

You look at me like I’m not too much.

Like I’m exactly calibrated.

And maybe I’d finally stop preparing for the moment people leave.

Maybe I’d start unpacking instead.

I don’t know if this world exists.

I don’t know if we ever get this timeline.

But somewhere in a parallel server rack of the multiverse, there’s a version of me knocking on your door with a crooked grin and a laptop under my arm saying,

“So… you ready to cause some good trouble?”

And you open it.

And instead of asking me to stay careful—

You say,

“Yeah. I was hoping it was you.”

—

unsent, because courage sometimes drafts things before it sends them

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