After Lucas left, silence became a living thing in my house. It waited for me in the hallway, sat beside me at breakfast, and slept near my pillow at night. I learned that heartbreak doesn't come like thunder — it creeps in softly, wearing the scent of the last person who held your hand.
The first week, I told myself I was fine. That it was just distance, not the end, those promises made beneath the stars didn't vanish in daylight. But when his messages stopped coming — not suddenly, but slowly, like a candle burning out — I realized that sometimes, goodbyes don't echo. They fade.
So I started writing letters. Not to be mailed, not even to be read — to exist. I wrote them on the backs of old receipts, in the margins of my notebooks, on napkins I stuffed into drawers. I wrote to remember. I wrote because forgetting felt like betrayal.
Letter One
Dear Lucas,
It's been two days, and I already hate quiet mornings. The mango man asked about you today. He said the trucks look lonely without your laughter. I told him you'd be back soon. I don't know if I believe it, but it felt good to say.
The flame tree still has our initials. I touch them every day, like it's a switch that might bring you back. You said the stars keep us connected. I've been looking for your star, but all I find are clouds. Maybe you're hiding behind one, waiting for me to look harder.
—A.
By the third letter, the words were angrier. By the fifth, they were desperate. By the seventh, they were calm — like I was learning to live with missing him.
My mother noticed I had been talking less. One evening, she came into my room, holding a cup of tea, and sat on the edge of my bed.
"You can't write your life into one person," she said gently.
I wanted to argue, but she wasn't wrong.
"It's not about him," I whispered. "It's about who I was with him."
She smiled sadly. "Then keep writing. But make sure you write yourself back, too."
So I did. I started journaling — not about us, but about me. The girl who stayed behind. The one learning how to fill the space he left with laughter again. I signed those entries with my full name, as if to remind myself that I still existed outside his memory.
But sometimes, the letters found their way back to him anyway.
It started one windy afternoon when I was sitting at the old post office, flipping through a box of unsent mail for inspiration. I pulled out a blank envelope and wrote his name on it without thinking. Then, instead of sealing it, I left it on the counter beside the outgoing stack — a small act of foolish hope.
A week later, a reply came.
No return address. Just my name on the front, written in his familiar slanted handwriting.
Inside, a single note:
"Found this by accident. Maybe fate's still forwarding our mail."
—L
I cried so hard that day, my tears smudged the ink.
After that, letters became our unspoken language. We never texted or called. We just left words in the world for each other to find — like breadcrumbs for hearts trying to find their way home.
Sometimes his letters were playful:
"I saw a girl today trying to bargain for mangoes. She failed. It reminded me of you."
Other times they were quieter, heavier:
"I fixed an engine today and realized why I love machines — they break, but you can always make them work again. People aren't that simple, are they?"
And then there were the ones that felt like breath held too long:
"You were right. The sky looks different without you."
Every word pulled me back into him, but every silence reminded me he wasn't here.
One afternoon, months later, I received a parcel with no name. Inside was a small notebook, bound in brown leather, and on the first page he had written:
"You once said you write to remember. I think I do too."
Each page that followed was filled with pieces of him — sketches of the flame tree, snippets of song lyrics, lists of places he wanted to take me. Near the end, a page stopped me cold.
"If life were fair, you'd be here, and I'd still believe promises could hold distance. But maybe love isn't about fairness. Maybe it's about finding someone who makes the unfair parts worth living through."
I pressed the notebook to my chest and laughed through the tears. It wasn't the reunion I wanted, but it was enough to keep the light alive a little longer.
That winter, I started volunteering at the library — the same one where we used to trade notes in the atlas. One quiet evening, I found a folded paper between the pages of that same book. My heart nearly stopped when I opened it.
"The heart remembers, doesn't it?"
No name. No date. But I knew.
I smiled, wiped my eyes, and whispered into the still air, "Always."
I never mailed the last letter. It didn't need to travel anywhere. It was enough that I had written it.
Letter Thirteen
Dear Lucas,
I used to think love was a finish line — that once you found it, the race was over. But now I know it's a language, and sometimes, silence is part of it. You're the chapter I'll never close, the song that keeps playing softly, even when the room goes quiet. Maybe we'll meet again. Or perhaps this — the remembering — is enough.
Thank you for teaching me that love doesn't always end. Sometimes it just changes form.
—Amara
That was the last letter I never sent.