THE LAST LETTER

**The Last Letter**

It was a chilly November evening in London, the kind where the wind seemed to cut through you, but the warm glow of the streetlights offered a small comfort against the darkness. Emily walked briskly down the cobbled street, clutching her coat tighter around her. Her heart raced with a mix of anticipation and dread. In her purse was a letter, a letter she’d written and rewritten a thousand times but never had the courage to send—until tonight.

Emily and James had been together for five years, the kind of relationship that everyone thought would last forever. They met in college, bonded over a shared love of literature, and spent countless nights reading poetry to each other under the stars. James was everything she had ever wanted—kind, intelligent, and endlessly patient. But somewhere along the way, something changed.

It started small, as these things often do. A missed call here, a forgotten date there. Emily noticed James becoming more distant, spending longer hours at work, and finding reasons to avoid spending time together. She told herself it was just a phase, that they were both busy, but the nagging feeling in the back of her mind wouldn’t go away.

Then, one night, she found the message.

James had left his phone on the kitchen counter while he went to shower. The screen lit up with a text notification, and before Emily could stop herself, she had read it. The message was from someone named Lily—a name she had never heard James mention before. The words were innocent enough, but the familiarity in the tone, the casual intimacy, sent a chill down her spine.

“Can’t wait to see you tomorrow! Last night was amazing. xx”

Emily’s world crumbled. She sat on the cold tile floor, staring at the phone, her mind racing. How could he do this to her? After everything they had been through, the promises they had made, how could he betray her like this?

But Emily didn’t confront James. Not immediately. Instead, she withdrew into herself, becoming a shadow of the woman she once was. She began avoiding him, throwing herself into her work, and spending more time alone. James noticed, of course, but when he asked what was wrong, Emily would just smile and say she was tired. She was too afraid to ask the question that haunted her every waking moment.

A month passed, and the distance between them grew wider. James, oblivious to the cause, tried to bridge the gap, planning surprise dates and leaving little notes around the house, but nothing seemed to work. Emily could see the confusion and hurt in his eyes, and it only made her feel worse.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. Emily wrote the letter, pouring out everything she had been holding back. She confessed how she had seen the message and how it had shattered her trust. She wrote about the pain of watching their love slip away and how she didn’t know if she could ever forgive him. But in the end, she told him that she loved him too much to let him go without giving him a chance to explain.

Emily sealed the letter and placed it in her purse, planning to give it to James that evening. But as she walked through the streets of London, something caught her eye. Across the street, standing under a streetlamp, was James. And he wasn’t alone.

Emily froze as she watched him embrace a woman she instantly recognized from the photos on James’s phone—Lily. They were laughing, holding hands, looking at each other with a warmth and affection that Emily hadn’t seen from James in months. And then, as if to seal her fate, James leaned in and kissed Lily softly on the lips.

The letter in Emily’s purse suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she turned away, unable to watch anymore. She walked to the nearest park bench and sat down, her mind numb with shock. How could she have been so blind? The truth was right in front of her all along, and yet she had refused to see it.

With trembling hands, Emily pulled the letter out of her purse and tore it into tiny pieces, watching as the wind carried them away. It was over. Whatever love they had shared was gone, a mistake that she had held onto for too long. She felt a strange sense of relief mixed with overwhelming sadness. She had loved James with all her heart, but now she had to find the strength to let him go.

As she sat there, watching the pieces of her letter disappear into the night, Emily knew that this was the beginning of a new chapter in her life. A chapter where she would learn to love herself again, to trust her instincts, and to never settle for anything less than she deserved. The night was cold, but the promise of a new dawn gave her the warmth she needed to move on.