Chapter 33 – "The Memory That Stayed Behind"
The coffee shop on 6th street hadn't changed much.
Same chipped blue walls. Same overwatered plants drooping from the windowsill. Even the same barista—though he looked a little more tired, a little more like the rest of us.
I walked in without thinking. Not because I wanted coffee, but because I remembered you once said their cinnamon rolls tasted like home.
I stood there for a moment, just breathing it in. The clink of ceramic cups, the low hum of conversations, the faint tune of an old indie song playing on loop. Everything felt the same—but you weren't there.
I sat by the window. Our window.
And I pulled out my notebook.
Not the one for work, or for scribbles. The one I promised myself I'd stop writing in. The one that only holds letters I never sent.
"Dear you," I wrote. "Today felt like a memory."
I told you about the smell of cinnamon. About how the sunlight landed perfectly on the empty chair across from me. About how the barista still draws hearts in the foam, like he's trying to remind people that small gestures matter.
I didn't write it with tears in my eyes this time.
There was... calm. And a kind of ache that didn't demand to be fixed anymore.
Somewhere between the pages, between every letter I never sent, I think I finally understood something:
You were a chapter in my life. One that hurt, but also healed. A chapter I read too many times, hoping for a different ending. But stories don't change just because we want them to. They change when we do.
I folded the letter and slipped it between the others. No envelope. No address.
I stayed a little longer, watching people come and go. Strangers. Lovers. Friends. All of them carrying something invisible. All of them with stories they didn't say out loud.
Maybe we all have our own thousand letters unsent.
Maybe that's how we keep moving—by writing them, feeling them, and quietly letting them go.