I'm writing you a letter I'll never send.
Or maybe I've been writing it all along — every silence I've carried since you left, every photograph I never developed, every book I closed after three pages. Maybe this letter has been unfolding quietly, in the pauses between my thoughts, in the soft tremble of dawns without you. Some words are simply too heavy to speak, and some truths are easier to bury than to break apart under the weight of memory.
It's late. The city is asleep. I should be too. But some nights aren't meant for sleeping. They're meant for remembering. For bleeding gently through the cracks of everything we thought we had time to say.
You're not here, and yet this room still holds your breath.
The way the curtain sways reminds me of how you used to leave the window open, just enough to let the breeze in. The wind still smells faintly of that perfume you wore that summer — the one that felt like promises. I wonder if you still wear it. I wonder if someone else holds you now while the wind dances through your hair. I wonder if they know how lucky they are. And I wonder if you ever think of me.
There are so many things I never told you.
I never told you that I knew you were leaving that night. Even though you smiled. Even though you left your coat hanging behind the door like you were coming back. I knew. We always know. The way you know rain is coming before the clouds break. The way a melody ends before the final note.
I never told you I read that unsent message — the one you left in your drafts. "I'm sorry," it said. Just that. No punctuation. No signature. Just a hollow apology with no body. But somehow, it felt heavier than anything you had ever said out loud. I stared at it for hours. I still don't know if I was hoping you'd send it, or praying you wouldn't.
I never told you how it felt to find your scarf months later, hidden deep in the pocket of my winter coat. It still smelled like you. That gentle, warm, bittersweet scent that used to mean home. I stood there, in the middle of the hallway, and forgot how to breathe.
I never told you that I kept hearing your laugh in places you'd never been. In a café, in a song, in a stranger's voice. Your laugh was never just sound — it was sunlight breaking through. I think I've spent months chasing that laugh like it was a thread that could lead me back to you.
I never told you that I hated you, once.
Just for a moment. For not fighting. For not coming back. For not knocking on my door in the rain with your heart in your hands, messy and trembling and real. I hated you for the silence. For the slow fade. For letting it die without a final breath.
But if I'm honest — and maybe this letter is the first place I've really been honest — I hated myself more. For letting you go. For not running after you. For loving you quietly when I should have screamed your name.
I never told you that I changed.
Not in any dramatic, life-altering way. But I became softer. Sadder, maybe. I walked through grief like it was a fog that never lifted, each step guided by memory. I became the kind of person who stares too long at the sky, who keeps old voicemails, who forgets how to say, "I'm okay" without hesitation.
But I survived. And I found light again — not the blinding kind, but the gentle glow that warms from the inside out. And I think some of that light still carries your reflection.
I never told you that I forgave you.
Not because you asked. You never did. Not because you came back — you didn't. But because I had to. Because carrying anger was like trying to breathe underwater. Forgiveness wasn't a gift I gave you. It was freedom I gave myself. I couldn't live trapped in the version of myself that loved you so completely, so recklessly.
And yes, I loved again.
That, too, I never told you. It was slow. Careful. Frightened. My heart still bore your fingerprints, but it beat again. Differently. More cautiously. With someone who held it gently, who didn't make promises they couldn't keep. It wasn't like what we had — it wasn't fire, or thunder. It was the soft rhythm of rain on windows, the comfort of knowing someone would stay. I'm not sure if it will last. But it's real. And it's enough.
I never told you that I will always love you.
Not in the way I used to. But in the way we love people who shaped us. Who scarred us beautifully. Who taught us what it means to feel everything and still find the strength to let go. You are not a wound anymore. You are a chapter. One I have read a thousand times, memorized every word, and finally learned to close.
I never told you thank you.
For the mornings you stayed a little longer. For the nights you whispered dreams. For the books you left half-read on my nightstand. For the way you knew when to touch my hand and when to let it go. Thank you for teaching me that love is not about permanence — it's about presence. About being there, fully, when it matters.
There are hours I will never forget.
The quiet ones. The impossible ones. The hours spent in your gaze, the hours spent in your absence. They live in me, stitched into the lining of who I am. Some days, they ache. But most days, they hum like an old song I've learned to hum along with.
You taught me depth. You taught me silence. You taught me how sometimes the most beautiful things are also the ones that break us open. And I like to believe — I need to believe — that somewhere, you still think of me too. Maybe not every day. Maybe not even often. But once in a while. When you see a red dress in a shop window. When you drink a cup of coffee that's gone cold.
I'm writing this letter because it needed to be written. For you, yes. But mostly for me. Because some stories deserve an ending, even if the person they were written for never reads the final page.
The truth is, I'm okay now.
You didn't come back. And I stopped waiting. But I remember. And I smile. And that, I think, is enough.
The letter sits on the table. Unsealed. Unsent. I don't need to reread it. I've lived every word.
The wind slips through the open window again, just like you used to let it. The sun is starting to rise — pale gold spilling across the walls like hope.
In the next room, Camille stirs in sleep. Maëlle sent a message earlier — a quiet hello, an invitation to meet again. There are people who stay. People who write new stories with you, gently, page by page.
I no longer need to rewrite the past.
I no longer fear forgetting you.
Because I never will.
But I also no longer fear remembering.
This is what peace looks like. Not forgetting. Not replacing. Just… living. With the ache. With the memory. With the love that was, and the love that might still come.
So this is what I never told you.
And this time, I don't need to.
Because I'm finally free.
End of Chapter 12 — What I Never Told You
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End of the novel