The Last Letter I Never Sent to John

Dear John,

I never sent this letter when it would have mattered. Maybe that’s the whole point of it now.

You were the kind of person who made silence feel comfortable — like sitting beside a fire and not needing to speak. Just being there was enough. That kind of presence is rare. You were rare.

But I didn’t say that then.

I smiled too much. Laughed too loudly. Hid behind sarcasm and self-deprecating jokes, because being soft felt like exposure. And you — you had this way of seeing through all of it. Like you were searching for the version of me I was too scared to be.

You almost found her.

We met during a season of loss. I’d just buried someone who meant the world to me, and you… well, you had stopped believing in anything lasting. You said life was just a series of exits dressed up like arrivals. We were both pretending we hadn’t been broken.

You used to call us “strays” — two wild things pretending to be tame. But we understood each other. We barked, we bit, and then we sat quietly, side by side. Survivors. Friends. Almost something more.

That old park bench near the corner bookstore? That was ours. Every Thursday, without fail, we’d sit with our mismatched coffee orders and talk about nothing — and everything. You always ordered your coffee black, no sugar. I always said you were trying too hard to be bitter.

I never told you, but I loved those Thursdays more than most birthdays.

One day, you asked me, “Do you ever feel like you’re just rehearsing a version of your life you’re too afraid to actually live?”
And I laughed. Not because it was funny — but because I knew exactly what you meant.

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to ask you what version you were living when you were with me. But I didn’t. I let the moment pass, like I always did.

When you left, it wasn’t with a bang. No dramatic exit. Just the slow fading of texts and the quiet unraveling of Thursdays. One skipped meet-up turned into two. Then a month passed. Then a season. I told myself you were busy. That life had just shifted.

But we both know that’s not it.

The truth? I still go back to that bench sometimes. I sit there with two coffees. I even talk to you — in my head. I still imagine you walking up late, smiling like it’s been no time at all.

Pathetic, right?

But some stories don’t end cleanly. Some people become chapters with no punctuation. You were a page I never got to finish, a letter I never sent.

So, here it is.

John — I was scared. I was in love with your mind, your stillness, your chaos. All of it. I didn’t know how to be loved without earning it, and you didn’t know how to stay where you felt too much.

We were messy. But real.

And maybe, just maybe, if this letter finds you — somewhere, somehow — I hope you know that I loved you in my own unfinished way.

Thank you for the Thursdays.
Thank you for the questions.
Thank you for being the bench, and the silence, and the almost.

This is goodbye. For real, this time.

With all the words I should’ve said,
Me