Not properly.
Not the kind of cry that steals the oxygen from your lungs and reminds you that you were stupid enough to love someone who was always halfway gone.
Not the kind of cry that digs its claws beneath your ribs and whispers,you should’ve known better.
So I reach for the pen.
The one I swore I wouldn’t use and the paper.
The sheet I tucked inside the med kit like a coward hiding her own confession.
I write his name at the top.
Just his name.
Dax.
I stare at the letters until they blur—until his name looks like smoke rising off a battlefield.
And then I start.
Dax,
You didn’t say goodbye.
Not really.
You said goodbye, butterfly with that voice that sounds like smoke and regret, the one that snaps spines and pretends it’s anger.
But that wasn’t a goodbye.
That was a severing.
A punishment wrapped in softness.
You left me standing barefoot in a kitchen drenched in syrup and silence, and now every time I touch my skin I keep wondering if you can still taste me on your fingers.
And I hate you for that.
I hate you for all of it.
For making five minutes feel like a future.
For looking at me like I was home and then walking away like I was a bruise you regretted pressing.
But I love you more.
God, I love you more.
And that’s the part that makes this letter a weapon.
Because if I start telling the truth—I won’t stop.
You think you’re the one who dies in this story.
But Dax… you already did.
You died the moment you stopped believing you were worth waiting for.
