Soft at the edges like it’s been handled too many times.
My name is written across the front exactly the same way he used to write it when we were kids—not elegant, not neat.
Just mine.
My vision swims.
No.
No, no, no.
He said this was the first letter he ever wrote.
The one I sent back.
I pick it up with a hand that doesn’t feel like mine.
The paper is warm—like it was in someone’s pocket too long.
Someone who was just here.
I turn it over.
The seal is torn.
Not by me.
By him.
The back is ripped jaggedly like he opened it in anger.
Or desperation.
Or both.
I swallow hard, fingertips trembling as I hold it over my lap.
Another piece of folded paper slips out and flutters to the floor.
Smaller.
Different.
Not the same heavy paper he writes on now.
This one looks—God.
It looks four years old.
It looks like a ghost.
I pick it up.
The paper is yellowed at the edges, the folds crisp from years of being unopened, then re-folded, then carried God knows where.
My heartbeat is a steady hammer in my ears.
I open it.
