Letter from my ex

 Letter from my ex

The letter came on a Tuesday, quiet, gray-skied, and uneventful. It was wedged between a bill and an ad for a pizza place she never ordered from. Her name was written in familiar handwriting that hit her like a slow ache in her stomach. She hadn’t seen that handwriting in over a year.

She stood in the kitchen, envelope in hand, staring at it like it might bite. For a moment, she considered throwing it away. But curiosity, like grief, is relentless. Her fingers trembled as she tore it open.

The letter began with her name. Just her name. Not “Hey” or “Dear.” Just the name he used to whisper against her neck. The paper smelled faintly of cologne, his cologne and it pulled her backward, through time.

Each word was a wound. He wrote of regret, of cowardice. He remembered everything: the way she used to bite her bottom lip when thinking, the way her eyes lit up when she was about to win an argument, how she cried the night he walked out without saying goodbye.

She had buried that night. Locked it in the back of her mind like a room no one enters. But the letter broke the lock, and the memories rushed in. She saw herself on the floor, broken and begging him to stay, while he stood silent, eyes glassy, jaw clenched. Then the door slammed.

He wrote about that silence. He confessed that he thought he was doing the right thing. That leaving without closure would hurt less than facing her and saying, “I’m not strong enough for the love you give me.” He had lied to her, to himself.

She sat down at the kitchen table, heart hammering. Her tea had gone cold. A crow landed on the window ledge, stared at her like it knew. Her dog, Leo, padded into the room, sensing her tension, resting his head on her foot.

The letter stretched on. He detailed things he’d never admitted while they were together, his fear of becoming his father, his resentment of his own weaknesses, how he used anger to mask guilt. It was raw. Unedited. Painfully human.

He told her he still loved her. But that he didn’t deserve to say it. That love should not come from someone who made you question your worth. That what he gave her wasn’t love, it was possession, dependency, shadows.

She felt every word like glass under her skin. She hadn’t cried in months. Not really. But now the tears came, not loud or dramatic, just slow, persistent rivers.

She remembered how she used to wait for his texts. The silence would stretch across hours, and then he’d pop up, cold or dismissive, and somehow she would apologize for needing him.

And yet, there were good moments. Mornings wrapped in bedsheets. Laughing at dumb movies. Him brushing her hair out of her eyes. Those memories hurt most of all  because they lied. They said it had been real.

But it hadn’t been real. Not fully. It had been love dressed in fear, promises dressed in silence, and she had dressed her loneliness in hope.

She folded the letter in half, then into quarters. But she didn’t throw it away. She placed it in the drawer beside her passport, next to the only photo she still kept of them, the one taken at the beach, where she looked so happy and he looked like he was already halfway gone.

The next day, she woke up early. She made coffee. She fed Leo. She sat at the window and watched the sun break through the clouds like it had something to prove.

She didn’t reply to the letter. Not right away. She wasn’t ready. Healing, she’d learned, doesn’t arrive with a dramatic doorbell ring. It’s quiet. It’s morning routines and learning to stop looking over your shoulder.

But she thought about writing him back. Not to reawaken what they had, but to tell him something simple. Not “I forgive you.” Not “I still love you.” Just the truth: I survived you.

And that would be enough. More than enough.

Weeks passed. One morning, she walked past a flower stall and bought sunflowers, her favorite. She smiled at the vendor. A stranger smiled back. And for the first time in a long time, she didn't feel like she was wearing a ghost.

The letter stayed in the drawer. She didn’t read it again. She didn’t need to. She remembered every word not because she still loved him, but because she finally understood herself.

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