The Letters I Never Sent

I’ve written you a hundred letters.

Some on paper. Some on the backs of receipts, napkins, and envelopes I never mailed. Some that only existed in my head while I stared at the ceiling at 3 a.m., rehearsing the words I’d never say out loud.

You probably don’t even remember the last time we spoke. But I do.

It was raining — not dramatically, not movie-style, just a steady drizzle that blurred everything into soft edges. You’d just told me you were moving three states away, and I’d smiled like it didn’t matter.

“I’ll visit,” I said.

You nodded. We both lied.

The first letter I wrote was two weeks later.

It started simple: I miss you.

I never mailed it because I was afraid you’d read it and not feel the same. Or worse — that you wouldn’t reply at all.

So I kept it. Folded it carefully, tucked it into a shoebox under my bed.

Then I wrote another. And another.

The letters became a ritual — a quiet conversation between who I was and who I was trying not to be.

Some were long, full of the mundane: how the coffee shop on Fifth changed owners, how our favorite bookstore still smelled like cinnamon and dust, how I still listened to that playlist you made.

Others were short, just a sentence or two.

I saw someone wearing your jacket today.

Do you still hum when you cook?

The first snow came early this year — you would’ve loved it.

Each time I wrote, I promised myself it would be the last one. It never was.

Years passed.

I moved apartments. Got a new job. Fell in and out of love twice. Grew up in ways I didn’t know I needed to.

And still, every few months, I’d find myself sitting at the kitchen table, pen in hand, starting another letter I’d never send.

It wasn’t obsession. It wasn’t sadness. It was something softer — the way you might trace a scar, not because it hurts, but because it reminds you you’ve healed.

Sometimes, I wondered what you’d think if you saw them all — if you’d laugh, or cry, or feel nothing at all.

Maybe you’d see what I finally understood: that love doesn’t always ask to be returned. Sometimes it just wants to be remembered.

Last winter, I went home to visit my mother.

She’d kept most of my childhood things — drawings, trophies, school photos — all stacked neatly in a box labeled “keep forever.”

Buried beneath old yearbooks, I found the polaroid of us from senior year. We were at the carnival, wind in our hair, powdered sugar on our faces, smiling like the world was endless.

You had written on the back:

“Let’s never grow up.”

I stared at that photo for a long time. And then, for the first time in years, I didn’t feel the urge to write you.

Something inside me exhaled.

Because I realized: I didn’t need to tell you any of it. You already existed in all the places that mattered — in the laughter that comes easy, in the songs I still hum without noticing, in the small kindnesses I offer without reason.

You became a part of who I am, even if you’re no longer here.

This morning, I finally opened the shoebox.

The letters were yellowed, the ink faded in places. I read a few, smiling at the parts that once hurt.

Then, without ceremony, I carried them outside and set them in the fire pit. The paper curled, glowing gold before it turned to ash.

I didn’t burn them to forget you. I burned them because I finally understood you never really leave the things you love.

They just change shape.

Sometimes they become silence.

Sometimes a memory.

Sometimes the way the morning light hits the wall and makes you stop, just for a second.

I watched the last letter turn to smoke, drifting upward like a secret too light to hold.

And I whispered, quietly — not to you, but to the part of me that still waited —

“Thank you. You can go now.”

The wind carried it away.

And for the first time in years,

so did I.