Acknowledgments

32 chapters
185.000 words
1.700 favourites
1.150 reviews
11 years, 3 weeks, and 5 days

It is strange to think that I started conceptualizing this story while sitting on a swing in the backyard of my childhood home as a teenager. It was a couple years after that I actually gained the courage to post my first chapter online. And yes, sometimes now, in my 30s, I look back at my early chapters or my first outline and cringe at the childishness. But there is also pride at how far this story has come since then. And how far I have come.

This story has been with me through a great many ups and downs on my own not-so-lonely path. Snippets were written during study breaks, between wedding planning tasks, some even while sitting and waiting at my father's death bed. Since starting this book, I have gained two university degrees and a doctorate. I have lived in five different cities. I have started a career; bought a house; married a wonderful man.

Over the years, there were many times I forgot about this story. Times when I got frustrated with it and thought I would quit. Times I felt I wrote myself into a corner I couldn't get out of and couldn't face it again. And every time that happened, one of you lovely readers would leave a review.

And I would read each and every review and be filled with so much happiness and excitement that even with a year of no updates, someone out there was still reading, still looking forward to my posts, still eager for it to continue.

I have been overwhelmed by the support and kindness I have received from the fanfiction community. In a world where there is so much negativity on the internet, it is easy to be gripped by anxiety when posting something. Will they hate it? Will the trolls be out in force today? Is this section too cliché? Did I make too many typos?

Over and over, real life and our own insecurities threaten to beat down creativity. It would be so easy to let them win. But your reviews kept this going. This story exists because of you.

Thank you.