The Book That Wrote Me First

I am reading a novel that describes, in excruciating detail, exactly how I am sitting on this beach today. It notes the salt spray on my glasses and the way the purple fabric of my dress clings to me like a second skin under the midday sun.
The plot is simple: two strangers meet at a seaside café after years of living parallel lives in Tokyo—never crossing paths, yet always feeling each other's absence. I turn the page to find that he has just arrived behind me with two iced lattes and a smile that tastes like nostalgia for a future we haven’t lived yet.
Here is where logic bends: I only bought this book because his handwritten note was tucked inside it in an antique shop downtown last week. But as I read the final chapter, I realize he wrote the novel *after* our first conversation on this very beach—a conversation that hasn't happened until five seconds ago when he whispered 'I’ve missed you' into my ear.
To be healed by someone who only knows me because they have already loved me for a lifetime is an impossible comfort. I am the author of his heart, yet he has written every word of mine
Our romance is a perfect circle: we exist in each other’s memories before we ever met, and now that we are here, time begins to flow backward just so we can stay together forever.

Editor: Paradox