I pull out another sheet.
Fresh.
Blank.
Waiting.
My hands shake.
I write anyway.
LETTER TWO
Dax,
Do you remember the night in the mirror room?
The way your hands shook when you touched me?
The way you looked at me like I was a light you didn’t think you deserved?
I think about that night too much.
I think about what it would’ve felt like if you didn’t stop.
If you’d let me fall all the way.
Maybe I already did.
Maybe I’ve been falling since the second you looked at me.
And now I’m writing letters to a man who’ll never read them.
Because he’s leaving.
And I’m leaving.
And what the fuck do you do with a love story that doesn’t have a middle?
What the fuck do you do with a love story that was over before it even began?
—Cassandra
I sit there in the dark with nothing but the quiet hum of the fridge, the soft rhythm of Lola breathing in the other room, and the ink drying on the pages in front of me — my confessions wrapped in secrets wrapped in fear.
I don’t cry.
Because if I start now, I know I won’t stop.
And I can’t fall apart yet.
Not while there’s still time.
Not while there’s still him.
Not while there’s still one more letter inside me —
the one I can’t bear to write
