Chapter 27 – Things Left Unsaid
The air was thick with the scent of old pages and rain—like memories soaked in time. Elira stood in the quiet of her childhood room, the faded wallpaper peeling at the corners, and the once-colorful posters dulled by years of neglect. Everything was the same.
And nothing was.
She hadn't meant to return. Not really. But her train had stopped here—literally and metaphorically. A sudden downpour, a power outage on the line… or maybe fate being poetic again. She used to write letters about fate. She used to believe in it.
Her suitcase sat unopened by the door.
She walked over to the desk, now dusty and cracked with time. And there it was—still hidden under the false bottom of the drawer.
A shoebox full of unsent letters.
Her fingers trembled as she opened it. A dozen envelopes, some yellowing at the edges. All addressed to him.
To Kael.
The boy with wild eyes and quiet hands. The boy who had once told her the sky could never hold him. The boy she never stopped writing to, even after he stopped answering.
She picked one, the oldest of them all.
"Dear Kael,
Today you kissed me under the library staircase. You tasted like ink and rebellion. I told you I was scared. You told me you were too. We laughed about it. We didn't know how temporary that moment would be."
She blinked rapidly, placing it aside, pulling another.
"Dear Kael,
I heard you left town without a word. I kept thinking it was a dream. That you'd call, like you used to when the world felt too loud. But silence is louder than anything now."
More letters followed—grief in ink, hope in fragile cursive, confessions hidden behind sarcasm and half-finished sentences.
Until the last one.
Unfinished.
"Dear Kael,
It's been three years. I think I stopped being angry last spring. You never owed me forever. But I wish you hadn't vanished. I wish—"
Her pen had stopped there. Like her heart had run out of words.
A knock at the door jolted her.
She turned. The knock came again—gentler this time.
When she opened the door, she almost forgot how to breathe.
It was him.
Kael.
Older. Scarred. Beautifully unfamiliar.
And holding… a letter.
"Elira," he said softly, eyes never leaving hers. "I think this belongs to you."
She took it slowly, her fingers brushing his.
It was her handwriting.
One of the letters.
"I found it," Kael whispered, "on a train platform in another city. Someone dropped it. I—I read it. I didn't mean to. But I did."
Elira's voice was barely audible. "Which one?"
He looked at her like she was the only real thing in the world. "The one where you said you would've waited forever… if only I'd said goodbye."
A silence fell between them. Heavy. Fragile.
Then Kael stepped forward, eyes raw with something between regret and longing.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I thought disappearing was easier than disappointing you."
Elira exhaled shakily. "And now?"
"Now I know… not saying anything was the worst thing I ever did."
There were still letters she hadn't written.
Still words buried under silence.
But maybe—just maybe—some things didn't need ink.
She stepped into him. Into the space between past and present. Her arms around him, tentative at first. Then certain.
And just like that—
They weren't letters anymore.
They were real.