The Text I Never Sent

I started typing it three times.

Once in the grocery store aisle between the bread and the coffee,

once on the bus home while the windows fogged with strangers’ breath,

and once in the quiet,

just after midnight,

when the only light in the room came from my phone.

It wasn’t long — just a few words.

“Hey. I miss you.”

But even the smallest sentences can feel like bricks in your chest.

I imagined you reading it.

Pausing.

Maybe smiling, maybe sighing.

Maybe setting your phone down on the table beside that chipped mug you refuse to throw away.

Maybe letting it sit there,

glowing for a while before it faded to black.

I didn’t send it.

Because I didn’t want to know if you’d ignore it.

I didn’t want the little “Seen” to appear without an answer.

I didn’t want to make you feel something you’d worked so hard to stop feeling.

So instead, I left it there,

in that limbo where all unsent words live —

a place between confession and silence.

It’s still in my drafts.

I scroll past it sometimes when I’m texting my mother,

when I’m sending a grocery list,

when I’m telling a friend I’ll be late.

And every time, I hover over it.

Not because I think I’ll finally send it,

but because it reminds me there was a time

when I still believed you might come back.

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