Love of a Lifetime

Published by Yasleh Hani Wati binti Mat Yassin at September 8, 2025

March 10, 2024

Dear Seth,

If you’re reading this, I know you’ve returned safely to where you belong. I know ten years isn’t that much of a difference, and things couldn’t be that different from how they are now, but we both knew you didn’t belong here in my time.

In this current time — my time — you are only 18 years old. You’re a student while I’m already a working adult at age 38. Even the future you who visited my time is nearly a decade younger than me — you’re only 28 and starting your adult life.

I wanted to write this even though you left this morning. I didn’t get to say all that I wanted to while we were together.

Surreal isn’t the word for it! What happened to us is beyond comprehension — beyond imagining. If it weren’t for all these tangible reminders you left behind, I’d think I had dreamt it all. Or worse. I’d think that I had gone insane and conjured up the perfect man out of a lonely, lovesick mind!

When I open my nightstand drawer, I still find the sketches you drew of me when we were together. Each pencil stroke on the page reminds me of a kiss or a word of love whispered in the dark. In the pantry, the sachets of premixed chocolate drink draw my eye. Seth’s favorite. They assure me you were not some figment of my imagination.

We’ll probably never know how you came to wake up in my house two weeks ago. How strange to think this will be your house in ten years’ time! Will it look the same now that you’ve returned to your own time? You disappeared this morning, before I could ask what you keep on the mantle when it’s your home. You just vanished while drinking your hot chocolate.

It must be one of the mysteries of life that I’ll have to accept as truth, even though I cannot fathom its nature.

I miss you already.

I miss how your eyes crinkle at the corners when you laugh — and the sound of your voice when you sing in your morning shower. I miss how intense but gently warm your eyes glow when you gaze at me. Most of all, I miss your presence near me.

You were here for a mere two weeks, so how did we fall so deeply and irrevocably in love with each other in such a short span of time?

I suppose contracting Covid was a blessing in disguise, for if I wasn’t stuck in quarantine at home the last two weeks, I wouldn’t have been able to spend all that time with you, and we wouldn’t have formed such an encompassing bond.

An uncertain future for us lies ahead. If I were to look you up in ten years, would you know who I am? You’ll still be 28, but I will no longer be 38. I will have aged ten years! For you it will be mere moments since you last saw me. For me, a decade of agonized waiting.

I don’t even know if I would still be the same person then. Would the ten lonely years have turned me bitter? Would the ten years waiting for you turn my soft, tender heart to stone? Or would it just grow weaker each day from the pain of missing you for so long?

All I know right now is that my heart aches because despite knowing it’s the best thing that you disappeared this morning — presumably back to your own time where you belong — I feel empty without you near.

How can you possess me entirely in only two weeks? My heart, mind, and soul are completely consumed by thoughts of you. Who could have thought that I could form such deep feelings for a man outside of my realm of time?

Who would ever imagine that a deep love could be formed between people from different timelines? Who could imagine that time travel is real and not just a fantasy from the library’s shelves?

I wouldn’t believe it myself if this hadn’t happened to us. Yet I feel so strong and sure about you.

Why is it that these words come so easily on this piece of paper, but were so hard to articulate when you stood right in front of me? I want so badly to tell you how much each moment spent with you these past two weeks has meant to me.

I have never felt such a deep connection with anyone before. No one understands me like you do. No one has ever come close to filling my soul and mind as you have. I have never formed such an unbreakable bond with anyone before.

Sadly, now, if ever I want to feel this closeness to anyone again — for I know it will only ever be you whom I love — I will have to wait ten years.

I can imagine it now. March 10th, 2034. I’ll be standing in front of your gates, ringing the doorbell. You’ll open the door. A look of surprise will wash over your face. “Sarah, has it been ten years for you?”

And I will cry as you take me in your arms and give me a comforting hug — a hug promising us forever together.

I have played this scenario over and over in my head since you disappeared at 10:22 this morning. It is now 4:37 in the evening. I’ve been moping all day — thinking that ten years might seem like an eternity but that it would be worth it when we are reunited.

I would wait ten thousand more years, if it meant that I could lay eyes on your tall, lean figure once more. What is ten years if it means I can look into those warm hazel eyes and see your loving smile again?

I love you Seth and I will wait those ten years for you!

All my love,

Sarah

March 17, 2034

My beloved Sarah,

I don’t know how else to express my feelings, so I am writing this to you. It’s been a week since I returned to my own time. The moment I came back, I opened the crack in the floorboard where you told me you would leave letters for me.

I found only one letter, dated on the day that I left you. What happened? Why is this the only one?

I did an immediate search online. It took me a while to find anything — there was ten years of news to go through!

The memories we shared are still fresh in my mind because for me it’s only been a week. I searched with every relevant detail about you that I could think of, but what I found broke my heart.

In a blurry news clipping, those bright shiny green eyes looked back at me: ‘AUTHOR SARAH LEE DIES — RUN DOWN BY WAYWARD CAR.’

You didn’t get to wait those ten years for me. Your life ended only a week after I left you. Today, ten years ago for you — only days for me — we said goodbye, even if I didn’t know it.

Our amazing relationship lasted just those two short weeks. Never will we know each other’s presence again. My heart has shattered over and over again. I know that I will never know another love like ours — a love that transcends time.

Maybe we will meet again, when I, too, leave this earthly plane.

Till we see each other where there are always rainbows without rain, I will love you for eternity, my beloved gone-too-soon-angel!

Your always,

Seth

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