YOU MADE IT, GŁUPI!_

August 12th, 2026.

Right beside Manchester Airport, underneath a sky that was busy doing something extraordinary, I was experiencing something extraordinary of my own.

You were there.

I remember the eclipse, of course. I remember watching the light change and knowing that we were witnessing something we might never experience together in quite the same way again.

But when I think about that day now, the eclipse somehow isn't the thing I remember most.

I remember you.

I remember what it felt like to finally have Kitty there beside Froggy. To look at you and realise that all of those feelings I had carried weren't just something living inside a screen anymore.

You made me feel wanted without asking me to become somebody else first. You made me feel cared for without making that care feel like something I had to earn. You wanted me happy. You wanted me to grow. You made being understood feel frighteningly possible.

And somewhere between watching the moon move across the sun and looking over at you, I think a little piece of me quietly understood:

Oh.

I'm really, really in love with this głupi. ♥

The eclipse passed.

This didn't.

I thought I knew what it would feel like to finally see you.

I had imagined it so many times that I thought there couldn't possibly be anything left for reality to surprise me with. I knew your voice. I knew your face. I knew the way you thought, the way you made me laugh, the way you could somehow reach through a stupid little screen and make an ordinary day feel softer.

And then you were actually there.

Not pixels. Not a message waiting to be opened. Not a voice coming through a speaker. You.

I could hear you without a phone between us. I could watch the tiny expressions on your face that a camera never quite catches. I could reach for you and find a real person there. The person I had spent so long missing before I had ever even been allowed to properly have him.

And the strangest thing was that reality wasn't disappointing.

It was better.

You were gentler than my fear had prepared me for. You listened to me as if what I said genuinely mattered. You never made me feel like I had to perform for your affection. You didn't demand anything from me except that I was okay. You wanted to see me happy. You wanted to see me grow. You looked at pieces of me I had spent years believing were too difficult, too damaged or too much, and somehow you didn't look away.

You just stayed.

I don't think you will ever fully understand what that did to me.

For so long, love had felt like something I had to earn by being useful, quiet, easy, pretty enough, good enough, less difficult, less frightened, less me. And then there you were, making kindness look effortless. Making respect feel normal. Making me realise how starved I had been for something as simple as being treated tenderly.

That first visit lasted only three days, but something in me divided itself into a before and an after.

Before you were there, I loved you through a magic rectangle and wondered whether something this important could ever survive becoming real.

Afterwards, I knew.

My entire world burst into colour.

And yes, there was an eclipse above us. Something rare and beautiful was happening in the sky, something people stop what they're doing just to witness.

But I remember looking at you and thinking that the rarer thing was standing beside me.

You.

This wonderfully strange, intelligent, gentle, ridiculous man who had somehow become so precious to me that having him within arm's reach felt almost impossible.

I remember thinking, over and over:

He's really here.

Kitty is really here.

And I fell in love with you all over again.

Not with an idea of you. Not with the version of you that existed on a screen. With the real one. The one beside me. The one who listened. The one who made me feel seen. The one whose presence somehow made the parts of the world that had gone grey begin to light up again.

I wish I could preserve exactly how my heart felt in those three days and put it here for you to open.

I can't.

So this is the closest I can get:

Meeting you didn't make me love you less because you had finally become real.

It made me realise I had somehow underestimated just how much more there was of you to love.

The first time you came, I wondered whether any of this could really be real.

The second time, you stayed long enough for me to stop wondering.

It wasn't one enormous moment that made those days matter so much.

It was all the little ones.

Having you beside me. Hearing you laugh. Looking over and remembering that you were actually there.

Being able to love you without a screen between us.

And somewhere during those days, something slightly terrifying happened.

Being with you started feeling normal.

Not ordinary.

Normal.

Like Kitty being beside Froggy wasn't some impossible thing anymore.

It simply felt like where you were supposed to be.