I’ll write again tomorrow.
Just tell me you’re okay.
Please.
—Kai
I stop breathing.
My whole body goes still—like the words have reached into my chest and wrapped around something vital.
He wrote this before he broke.
Before the obsession sank its claws into him.
Before the prison swallowed him whole.
This letter…
It isn’t the man who stood beside my bed last night.
This is the boy I could never outrun.
The boy I betrayed.
The boy I tried to forget.
And failed.
A sob rips out of me before I can stop it.
I press a shaking hand to my mouth, the letter trembling in my other hand.
How long did he keep this?
How many nights did he stare at words I never read?
He carried this with him.
For years.
He kept it.
Opened it.
Held it.
Broke the seal with his teeth or his nails or his rage.
And then tonight—Tonight he brought it back to me.
A gift.
A curse.
A reminder.
“Why… why did you keep this?” I whisper, staring at the ink he pressed too hard, the lines where the pen nearly tore the page.
