✦

My Keerthi,

You know that thing we do — walking side by side at night, no real destination, just streetlights and quiet and your hand in mine? I think about those walks more than I probably should. The way the whole world goes soft and slow, like it's just making room for us. I could walk forever like that, as long as your fingers stay laced through mine.

You are the calm at the end of my loudest days and the person I want beside me on every ordinary night for the rest of my life. There's something about the way you see the world — how you make the smallest moments feel like little celebrations, how you laugh with your whole face, how you care for the people around you like it's the easiest thing in the world. I've watched you, in a hundred small ways, and every single time I fall a little more.

You're the first person I want to tell my news to, the one I think of when a song I love comes on, the one who makes even a boring Tuesday feel worth living. Somewhere along the way, without me even noticing, you stopped being just someone I love and became home. Not a place — a feeling. The safest one I know.

Today I just want you to feel exactly how loved you are — not because it's your birthday, but because it's always true, and today's just the day I get to say it louder. So here's to you, Kheer: to your kindness, your strength, your ridiculous smile, and every quiet night we haven't walked through yet. I'd pick you in every lifetime, in every weather, under every sky.

— yours, always