A Love Letter to Nowhere

Some love stories never get their ending, only echoes in forgotten letters.

Maya sat cross-legged on the dusty wooden floor of her childhood home, surrounded by boxes filled with forgotten memories. The house had been empty for months since her mother’s passing, but she couldn’t bring herself to sell it. Not yet.

She ran her fingers over the faded wallpaper, recalling the warmth that once filled these walls. The scent of her mother’s perfume still lingered in the air, delicate and familiar. She sighed and reached for an old shoebox tucked beneath a pile of photo albums. Inside, she found letters—some yellowed with age, others barely touched by time.

She knew these letters well. They were from her father to her mother, filled with love, longing, and the dreams of a life they had built together. But as she shuffled through them, something unexpected caught her eye—a single, unopened envelope, slightly crumpled and worn.

Maya’s breath hitched. The handwriting on the front wasn’t her father’s. Her hands trembled as she carefully peeled it open.

Dearest Aisha,

I know I have no right to write to you. Not after all these years. But today, I saw you in the marketplace, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself wonder… do you ever think of me? Do you remember the nights under the old mango tree, where we whispered dreams too big for the world to understand? I never forgot. I never could.

I promised you forever. I failed. My cowardice, my silence—it built the walls that kept us apart. And yet, I write to you now, hoping for a reply that may never come. If not in this life, then perhaps in another.

Yours, always.

No signature. No return address.

Maya’s fingers clenched around the paper as her chest tightened with a sorrow she didn’t fully understand. Her mother had loved someone else—a love she had never spoken of, a love she had buried within herself.

She stared at the letter, realizing the weight of the silence her mother had carried all these years. Had she ever wanted to reply? Had she ever regretted not sending her own words back into the void?

The letter had never been sent.

A single tear slid down Maya’s cheek, falling onto the fragile paper. Some love stories were never meant to have an ending—only echoes in forgotten letters.