"The Last Postcard"

Amelia always like flying, but I never did. With her headphones on, she would sit by the window and draw clouds and mountain peaks, creating tales from the sky. We had a straightforward plan: one final backpacking trip before getting married. A month in the Balkans: sunsets on the Albanian coast, street food in Sarajevo, medieval monasteries, and turquoise lakes.

On a clear September morning, we touched down in Zagreb. Wet leaves and roasted chestnuts filled the air. Through cobblestone lanes, Amelia pulled me by the arm and paused every few steps to take pictures of stray kittens or antique buildings. She was always chasing moments, and I was laughing and panting as I followed her.

Our nights under hostel ceilings, where the air carried languages from all over the world, climbs that made our legs turn to jelly, and shared pastries and train rides were all part of our days. We were in love—not just with one another, but also with the sensation of being separated from our familiar surroundings.

After two weeks, we arrived at Montenegro's Durmitor National Park, a pristine, breathtaking wilderness with rocky peaks and deep canyons. Naturally, Amelia came up with the concept. Her words, "One real adventure," "Something we will always remember."

We discovered a path that sliced like a scar across the valley. "Unpredictable this time of year," the locals told us about the weather. But Amelia was undeterred, her confidence wrapped in that bright orange jacket she always wore.

We got going early. Clouds hung low over the mountains and the grass was stuck to the frost like honey. With only the crunching of our feet and the distant cry of hawks to break the calm, we ascended slowly. The world opened up around us at the top, with lakes glistening in the sunlight like coins and trees like green velvet.

The storm then arrived.

It was not a slow one. No warning was given. The rain came strong and horizontal after a brief gust of wind that almost pushed me sideways. There was no longer any visibility. We attempted to descend, but the track was lost due to fear and fog.

We hid, drenched and shivering, behind an overhang. The wild glint in Amelia's eyes was still there. I tried to trust her when she said, "We will joke about this later," and I nodded.

Then she slipped.

She was barely inches away from me, shifting to reposition herself, and then she was gone, a blur of orange falling down the slippery rock face, a scream ripped away by the wind.

Screaming her name till my throat scorched and the skies grew weary of sobbing, I scurried after her.

Twenty minutes later, she was still among broken stone and twisted pines.

Helicopters, foreign police, the agonizing slowness of paperwork and translation—the days that followed were a fog. With her rucksack tied to mine, I flew back by myself. It still contained her sketchbook, its pages soaked from the rain.

I took weeks to unpack when I got home. I put her collection of postcards on the refrigerator and her boots at the door. I repeatedly related her story to everyone who would listen, as though telling it out loud would make it easier to handle and seem more remote.

Months went by. I began mailing myself postcards from the locations we were meant to see. One from a bus stop in Sofia, one from Tirana, and one from Lake Ohrid. As though she were still with me, I penned them.

One person remarked, "I saw the market today." "The oranges would have delighted you."

There is no timetable for grief. On certain days, I can practically hear her giggling. On other days, I have trouble breathing.

However, I continue to travel.

It would be impossible to avoid her memory, but I wanted to keep her with me. to scatter tiny fragments of herself throughout the world she never saw.

I trekked the same trail in Durmitor a year later. A postcard that I left beneath the overhang. I only wrote one line on it:

"In the end, we laughed about it."

And I believe she did, somewhere.