Hey socks—there were a lot of sweet parts to this! I agree about the preaching part being somewhat distracting.

One other point I’d raise is that it would be nice if this started with ‘Dear Sophia.’ The reason I say that is that without that context it feels like a story that is telling us stuff about what has happened to the mc vs showing us what happened.

Also, a small thing, but the first sentence feels quite repetitive. I think you could save a bit of word count but paring it down a little bit which will make it sharper and hook the reader more.

>> I remember when I was still 16, I was almost out of highschool with only one more year left.

Could be:

• I remember when I was sixteen with a year of high school left.

Last thing, you start quite a few sentences with ‘ I’ which could be varied up a bit more to not feel samey for the reader.