Father—

No... I don't think I can call you that tonight.

Not yet. Not for this letter.

My dearest,

Tonight, my house is quiet. Everyone is asleep, and tomorrow I marry the woman who has been nothing but gentle to me. I should be thinking about her, about our future, our vows, the life that everyone says will make sense on paper. But all I can think about is you.

You, standing at the altar tomorrow.

You, blessing my union with someone who is not you.

You, the boy who once held my hand under the acacia tree and made me believe that forever could be something simple, something soft, something ours.

I keep wondering if it’s selfish to write this letter. But then again... loving you always made me selfish. You made me want things I was never brave enough to keep.

I want to tell you my side, my story of us, before tomorrow turns us into a memory I am expected to bury with grace.

Do you remember that summer when we were eight?

I dragged you to the river even though you hated deep water.

"You won't drown,"  I told you, pretending I was fearless.

"As long as I'm here, you won't drown."

I didn’t know it then, but that was the first time I ever wanted to protect you, not just from the water, but from every sharp thing the world could throw at you. I had no idea that one day the thing you’d need protection from would be me… and my love.

We grew up side by side—muddy shoes, bruised knees, laughter always trailing behind us. You were the quiet one, the boy who listened to the world, and I was the reckless one who only ever listened when it was you speaking.

On Sundays, we were altar servers together, trying so hard to look holy while whispering jokes behind the priest’s back. I lived for the little glances you threw me when I tried not to laugh. And that time I almost tripped while carrying the candles? I blamed you, said you distracted me—but the truth was, your smile always did.

Somewhere in those small moments, the way I looked at you changed. You became a heartbeat I couldn’t ignore. A prayer I never meant to say out loud.

I didn’t even know what love was, but somehow everything about you felt sacred.

Your seventeenth birthday.

I remember it clearer than anything I should have forgotten by now.

The cloudy sky. The cheap soda. The blanket too small for both of us, so our shoulders touched and we pretended not to notice the way the world held its breath.

"Who needs stars when I have you?"

I said it like a joke, but every word was a confession I didn’t know how to name yet.

Then I asked,

"Do you ever wonder... if maybe... we're meant to be more than this?"

When you said no, something inside me dimmed so quietly I don’t think even God heard it.

You didn’t see it, but your rejection settled into my bones. It made me believe that I had imagined everything. That every look, every lingering silence, every moment that felt like love was just me, foolish, hopeful, wrong.

And yet you kept smiling at me. You always did.

Then you told me you were entering the seminary.

And the world inside me didn’t explode, it just sank, slow and silent, like something that had finally accepted its own drowning.

I joked,

"It figures. You always liked talking to God more than talking to me."

But deep inside, I was begging the heavens to explain why they deserved you and I didn’t.

What I never told you was this:

I thought you left to escape me. To escape the question I asked under the cloudy sky.

To escape the truth we both felt but only I was desperate enough to say out loud.

Maybe I was right.

I watched you from afar after that. Every Sunday. Every holiday. Every time you came home in your white collar, looking softer, wiser… lonelier. You looked like a man who carried the world but still had empty hands.

And even when you bowed your head in prayer, I could tell your silence carried pieces of me.

And I loved you from a distance—quietly, respectfully, painfully.

Time didn’t heal anything. It just taught me how to love you without touching you. How to stay whole while walking around with a missing part.

And now we’re here.

Years later.

Both grown. Both pretending.

Tomorrow, I will stand at the altar, not beside you, but in front of you. And you will bless my marriage with hands that once trembled when they held mine behind the church doors where no one could see.

You will smile. I will smile back.

And only we will know what that smile used to mean.

Many people think I chose my bride because she is safe, gentle, and warm.

But the truth is this:

I chose her because she loves me without the weight of a past that still aches.

Because she deserves a man whose heart is not split between what he has and what he lost.

Because you once told me, without words, that you could not choose me—and I am finally choosing someone who can.

Still…

I don’t want to lie, a part of me will be standing with you tomorrow, not her.

A part of me will always be seventeen, under the cloudy sky, wondering what might have happened if you had just said yes.

Tonight, this is my last confession:

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

I sinned because you were my first love.

My truest friend.

My almost.

My ache.

My what-if.

Thank you for every memory, every summer day, every stolen glance behind the altar, every quiet moment that made me believe that love, real love, was supposed to feel like breathing.

Tomorrow, when you say, "You may kiss the bride,"

I will let go of the life we never had.

But I hope, silently, selfishly, that somewhere deep inside you—

A small part of you will remember.

That I loved you first. And I never stopped.

Farewell,
The groom who watched you from afar and loved you even longer.