Return to Sender

The first letter she ever wrote to herself began with:

“Dear Claire, I hope today was kind to you.”

Claire folded it neatly, slid it into a pastel pink envelope, and sealed it with a sticker that said "Keep Going." She addressed it in loopy cursive to her own name and dropped it quietly into the outgoing mail bin.

That was eight months ago.

Since then, she had received 37 letters.

All from herself.

She used different names, different handwriting styles, sometimes different return addresses. One was from “Margot, a friend you haven’t met yet.” Another came from “You, but on a better day.”

It was a game. A comfort. A way to beat back the echo in her studio apartment and the empty lull of long weekends spent with lukewarm tea and unfinished jigsaw puzzles.

Claire was a postal worker—ironic, she thought, how someone surrounded by messages of love, joy, anger, and regret could feel so unseen.

It started after her mother died. Claire moved to a smaller town for quiet, for space. She told herself she liked solitude, that it gave her time to think.

But solitude stretched.

Then hollowed.

Then began to whisper.

So she wrote.

The letters were full of small kindnesses: reminders to buy fresh flowers, recipes her mother used to make, fake travel stories that made her laugh out loud in the quiet of her kitchen.

She never told anyone. Not even the chatty woman at the sorting center who shared her sandwiches. Not even her sister, who lived two cities over and texted only on birthdays.

Claire's ritual gave her something to wake up for. Something to expect.

Until one letter changed everything.

It arrived on a rainy Thursday in April.

Claire had forgotten she’d even mailed anything that week. She almost tossed it aside—until she saw the handwriting.

It wasn’t hers.

Not a style she’d faked. Not a name she’d used.

The envelope was cream-colored, textured, sealed tightly with deep red wax that bled into the paper like a memory.

The return address was blank.

No stamp.

No barcode.

Nothing.

Just her name. Just “Claire.”

Her fingers trembled as she opened it.

Dear Claire,

You don’t know me, but I know you.

I know you still keep your mother’s perfume in a drawer you never open. I know you hum old jazz songs when you’re nervous. I know you haven’t had dinner with another person in 214 days.

And I know you deserve more.

This isn’t a prank. This isn’t a game.

You’ve spent months writing to a version of yourself who still believes in love. This is my reply.

If you want to meet—come to the park bench by Willow Station at 6:00 PM, this Saturday. I’ll be there. Bring a letter. Leave it if you’re not ready. But know this: you are not alone, Claire. Not anymore.

—Return to Sender

Claire read the letter eight times.

She checked the postmark again—there wasn’t one. Checked every mailbox, asked every coworker. No one had seen it arrive.

Saturday came wrapped in gray clouds and quiet.

Claire stood in front of her mirror, debating between three sweaters. Her hands kept smoothing her hair, as if loneliness had somehow creased it permanently.

She wrote a letter. Just in case she couldn’t go through with it.

She arrived at 5:55 PM.

The park was nearly empty—just a few joggers and a woman chasing a toddler with a balloon.

And then, she saw him.

A man sitting alone on the bench. Holding a letter in his lap.

He looked up. Smiled.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said.

Claire clutched her envelope like a lifeline. “I almost didn’t.”

“Can I?” he asked, nodding toward the letter.

She handed it to him.

He handed her his.

They didn’t speak for a long moment. They just sat, side by side, reading.

His letter was full of details—about watching her from afar, not in a creepy way, but a quiet admiration. He’d worked nights at the print shop across from the post office. Saw her laughing in the parking lot once. Saw her crying another time and didn’t know why, but wished he could’ve helped.

“I never had the courage,” he wrote, “until I saw one of your letters fall from your coat pocket. I picked it up. Read it. It saved me that night.”

They met again the next Saturday.

Then every Saturday after.

Claire stopped writing to herself. She didn’t need to anymore.

Now, she wrote to him.

Months later, she cleaned out her old letter drawer. 37 envelopes. 37 versions of herself trying to survive the silence.

She kept just one.

“Dear Claire,

I hope today is kind to you. But if it isn’t—remember: tomorrow might bring a letter you didn’t expect.”