"Because through all the years I've known you, I have never once stopped wanting to hold you."
— Becky Chambers

I didn't know what it felt like to unravel.
Not until it began.

It wasn't pain.
It wasn't fear.
It was simply... letting go.
Piece by piece.

Like I was unthreading myself.
From my hair.
From my eyes.
From the palms that once brushed a petal from your hair.

⸻

I used to believe I didn't have a heart.

For hundreds — maybe thousands — of years, I lived that way.
No love. No longing. No need.

I was the one who arrived last.
I was the ending.

And then you looked at me —
as if I were the first thing that had ever existed.

⸻

I stood by your hospital bed for years.

Not to take you.
But to... learn how to wait.

Because you were different.
You didn't fear me.

You even smiled...
when you saw me draw a cat on fogged glass.

⸻

I wasn't supposed to love.
I knew that.

From the moment I was created, they told me:

"Death must never fall in love.
Because love makes your hands tremble.
And if your hands tremble... the soul escapes."

I trembled.

From the moment you smiled.
From the moment you asked, "Why aren't your hands cold?"
From the moment you looked at me — and didn't turn away.

⸻

When I begged for one more day with you, they warned me:

"You will vanish.
You won't ascend.
You won't descend.
You'll go nowhere."

But I didn't need a destination.
I just wanted one more day.

One more day to sit beside you.
One more day to watch the sky with you.
One more day to stop being Death — and just be someone named Joss.

⸻

And then, when your eyes finally closed from exhaustion,
I knew my time had come.

I looked at you.
For the last time.
No tears — I was never made with tears.

But if I had them,
I would have wept like rain.

I bent down.
Pressed a kiss to your forehead.
And gave away everything that remained in me —
so you could keep living.

⸻

That's when I began to unravel.

Not like dying.

But like losing the right to exist.

I no longer saw the world.
I only saw you.

⸻

I saw you wake up the next morning,
confused that your heart still beat.

I saw you hold my umbrella,
hands shaking like it still held warmth.

I saw you draw cats on windows each day —
as if to keep talking to someone no longer there.

And I saw... you live.

You ate, breathed, walked, ached, remembered, smiled,
taught children,
told stories about me like I was folklore.

No one believed you.

But you believed.
And that was enough.

⸻

Because you believed...
I didn't disappear completely.

I lingered.
In every crooked cat drawn with sleepy hands.
In every whiff of lavender you wore at night.
In every page of the book you carried —
always opened to the line I once read aloud:

"Love is just a shout into the void...
but I love you still."

⸻

If I had one last wish,
it wouldn't be to live again.

I would only ask:
May you never feel alone.

Even when there's no one beside you.

Because you were the last light
in a life born only to carry shadows.

⸻

Darling.

If one morning you look out the window,
and see the fogged glass already drawn upon —
a cat, missing its eyes,
a tilted umbrella curved toward you —

Don't ask who drew it.

Just smile.
And listen for the whisper:

"Did you know... I've always loved you."