The Silence Between Us

By [shahjhan]

Dear Noah,

I didn’t know where to start, so I started here—with silence.

It’s the one thing we’ve always been good at, isn’t it?

You'd think after three years of not speaking, I'd be used to it. But tonight, it feels louder than ever. It buzzes in my ears like an old television left on in an empty room. A soundless scream.

I wrote this letter knowing I may never send it

We used to talk about everything. You, me, and the sky—on our backs in the grass, counting satellites, telling lies about what we'd become.

Remember that night after Mom's funeral? We both sat at the kitchen table for hours, saying nothing. Your eyes were red, but you never cried. I did. You got up, poured me a glass of water, and said, "I’ll cry tomorrow."

You never did.

Dear Noah,

I wonder if you're angry.

I am.

But not in the way you'd think.

I'm angry at the way grief crawled between us, silent and heavy, and neither of us knew how to carry it. You went inward. I went away. I told myself distance would make things easier, that maybe silence was a softer kind of goodbye.

But I’ve learned something.

Silence doesn’t protect people.

It only delays the break.

You stopped returning my texts. I stopped sending them.

We grew around the absence like trees bending around a fence post.

Still growing, but misshapen. Stunted.

Dear Noah,

I found one of your drawings the other day—tucked in the back of Mom’s recipe book. A dragon curled into itself, asleep under a full moon.

It looked tired. Like you.

You always drew monsters so gently. Like you understood them.

Maybe that’s why I kept my own monsters hidden—jealous of how you gave yours a home on paper.

I used to think that being the older sibling meant being stronger, louder, first. But strength isn’t volume. It’s staying. It's calling even when you’re afraid the line will be dead on the other end.

I should have stayed.

Dear Noah,

Do you remember the night of your graduation?

I missed it—chose a job interview two states away instead.

You sent me a photo afterward: you in a wrinkled blue gown, your smile slightly forced.

I never responded.

I saved the photo anyway.

It still lives in my drawer, pressed between old plane tickets and birthday cards.

Your eyes looked like Dad’s in that picture. Soft. Wounded. Expecting too much and asking for nothing.

Dear Noah,

I don’t know what you believe in now—if anything.

But I still believe in letters.

Not the kind that ask for forgiveness,

but the kind that admit: I was wrong. I was scared.

And I miss you in ways I don’t have words for.

Which is funny, because we used to write stories together. Whole worlds. Remember?

You made the people.

I made the endings.

You always said I gave too much away too soon. Maybe I did.

I wonder if you kept the notebook.

The green one with the ripped corners.

The last thing we wrote in it was a story about a brother and sister who got separated during a storm.

They spent the rest of the tale trying to find each other again, leaving clues in constellations and folded paper boats.

We never finished it.

Maybe we still can.

Dear Noah,

I’m writing this with the window open.

It’s raining.

The sound reminds me of the roof in the old house—

how it leaked just above the sofa and we put a bowl there like it was part of the furniture.

I want to say I’m ready to talk.

Not just about what happened, but about what can still happen.

If this letter finds you—

Call me.

Yell at me if you want.

Tell me about your life now. Your art. Your regrets.

Or tell me nothing at all. Just let me hear your voice again.

Until then,

I’ll keep writing these letters

and folding them into boats,

hoping one might reach you

on the current of this silence

we’ve both learned to live in

—but not love.