The box felt heavier that morning.
Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just Kian's chest, tighter than usual, like grief had settled deeper overnight, curling into places even breath couldn't reach.
He sat on the floor of his room, legs crossed beneath him, the box between his knees. The curtains were still drawn, casting everything in dim, grey light. Outside, the world went on, birds, cars, neighbors, someone mowing their lawn like it was just another day.
But in here, time was different. Slower. Heavier.
He'd read six letters now. Six versions of Emilia. Six pieces of her heart she'd left behind like breadcrumbs, all leading him deeper into a story he hadn't known he was part of.
He'd told himself he was ready for the next one.
But when he reached into the box and his fingers brushed that pale cream envelope, something in him flinched. Like his body knew before his brain did.
He pulled it out slowly.
The paper felt thinner than the others. Softer.
September 14th, 2024.
A date that didn't feel significant.
Not until he remembered.
Ava.
The first week he started dating Ava.
They'd been walking down the front steps of the school when he told Emilia. Just casually, like it was nothing. She'd looked surprised, not upset, just… surprised. Then she laughed and shoved him lightly on the shoulder.
"Finally. I thought you were going to die alone with your Spotify playlists." She had said.
He remembered that line.
He remembered her smiling, wide and easy.
He hadn't thought about it since.
But now, holding the letter, he wondered how much of that smile had been real.
He unfolded the page with shaking hands.
14 September 2024
Dear Kian,
So… she's beautiful.
Of course she is. Everyone says so. She walks down the hall like she knows it, and you, you look at her like she's the sun after a long winter.
And I smiled.
I said all the right things. Made the jokes. Pretended like my heart wasn't sliding out of my chest the whole time.
I'm trying to be happy for you. I really am. But trying doesn't make it true.
It's not her fault.
It's not yours either.
But that doesn't make it hurt less.
I hate that she gets to hear your late-night thoughts, the ones I used to imagine you whispering to me if the world was different. I hate that she gets your hand in hers, your hoodie, your laugh at its softest.
I hate that I'm still here. Clapping from the sidelines like it doesn't feel like bleeding.
Do you know what it feels like to be second place in a race no one told you you were running?
To be the best friend, the support system, the listener, never the girl you look at like she could break your whole world open?
I waited.
I waited so long, and it never came.
And now it never will.
You kept asking if I was okay.
And I kept lying.
Because what else could I say? That every time she touched you, it felt like being erased?
No one hears a scream when it's happening underwater.
I hope she treats you right. I hope she never makes you wonder if you're enough.
I hope she tells you everything I never got to say.
I hope she loves you loud.
Because I never got the chance.
Love,
Emilia
Kian's heart cracked open in silence.
Ava. That whole relationship had lasted four months. They'd fought about dumb things, made out in stairwells, drifted apart. It hadn't even hurt when it ended.
But now, reading this, he felt like he'd shattered something he didn't even know he was holding.
She had smiled for him. Made jokes. Hugged him like nothing was wrong.
And she was bleeding the entire time.
******************************************************
He walked the long way home that day. Past the street where they used to bike in summer. Past the corner store where she used to buy watermelon gum and complain it tasted like chemicals and regret.
Every corner of the neighborhood was etched with her ghost.
That night, he sat on his bedroom floor, the letter still trembling in his lap.
His room was dark except for the flickering glow of a lamp he hadn't changed the bulb in. Shadows stretched long across the walls. Everything felt unfamiliar, even the things that had always been his. The trophies, the posters, the jacket slung over the chair. All of it belonged to a version of himself that hadn't known he was breaking someone else's heart.
He stared at the letter like it might offer answers.
But it only gave him more silence.
He whispered one line aloud, his voice hoarse.
"No one hears a scream when it's happening underwater."
It rang in his ears like something sacred. Like confession.
He tried to picture Emilia writing it. Alone. Quiet. Heart full of things she would never say. Did she cry after she folded the page? Did she sit there, waiting for the ache to dull?
"I didn't hear you, Em," he said softly.
His voice broke. "God, I didn't hear any of it."
He pressed the letter to his chest and leaned forward until his forehead touched the floor, like he could make himself smaller. Like maybe if he curled up tight enough, the guilt would stop gnawing at him.
The tears came in waves, hot and silent and endless. Not the kind you wipe away. The kind that belong to something much deeper.
He didn't know who he was to her anymore.
A friend? A regret? A lesson?
He didn't know who he was to himself.
And here he was, trying to hold pieces of her he never deserved to drop.
He folded the letter gently, like it might bruise if he touched it wrong.
And for the first time since the funeral, he said her name out loud.
Not like a question.
Not like a memory.
But like a prayer.
"Emilia."
And for the first time since she died…
he didn't feel like there was enough of him left to answer.