Kian hadn't been inside Emilia's house since Year Ten. Back when her mum made them pancakes shaped like dinosaurs and Emilia burned his eyebrows off with a faulty candle lighter during a birthday sleepover.
Back then, her room smelled like lavender and teenage rebellion.
Now it smelled like something sacred.
He stood at the doorway for a long time before stepping inside. Nothing had changed. Not really. Fairy lights still curled around her bookshelves. Her desk was still cluttered with half-finished drawings, receipts, and gel pens. A cracked iPhone charger dangled from the wall like she might walk in and plug it in any minute.
Her world was still here.
She just wasn't.
Kian moved to her desk and picked up a sketchpad. Inside were tiny doodles, some unfinished, some painfully detailed. A coffee cup with steam shaped like clouds. A boy in a hoodie who looked suspiciously like him. A girl curled in bed, her eyes open, lost.
He flipped to the last page.
There was a drawing of the two of them sitting under a night sky. She had drawn herself with a little crown on her head, and him with headphones.
At the top, it said: "The version of us where I tell you everything."
He swallowed. Hard.
He ran his fingers along the edge of her desk. One of the drawers stuck slightly when he tried to open it. He jiggled it loose and looked inside, a mess of receipts, tangled cords, random buttons, an old roll-on perfume. Then, underneath a crumpled scarf, something caught his eye.
A soft, fabric-bound journal.
It looked like something she'd had for years, the corners frayed, the edges worn down like they'd been worried by her fingers again and again. When he opened it, pages fluttered with ink and tiny pressed flowers.
Then something slipped out.
A folded letter. Carefully tucked between two blank pages.
Not sealed. Not in an envelope. Just waiting.
He hesitated.
This wasn't from the shoebox.
This wasn't meant to be part of the goodbye.
He glanced at the top. The date hit him in the chest. July 23rd, 2024.
Months before the hospital. Before the diagnosis.
Before the silence.
23 July 2024
Dear Kian,
Sometimes I wonder what you'd see if you really looked at me.
Not the version I show you. Not the girl who's "fine," who laughs at your jokes and acts like she's always okay.
But the real me.
The girl who stays up at night imagining entire conversations with you because she's too afraid to have them in real life. The girl who changes her clothes three times before you come over, then acts like it was no big deal.
The girl who listens to your problems like they're her religion, because it's the closest she'll ever get to being needed by you.
There are so many versions of me you've never met.
The one who cries in the shower so her mum won't hear. The one who skips lunch just to sit in the library where it's quiet. The one who memorizes the way you say her name like it's her favorite song.
I live a whole other life when you're not looking.
And I don't blame you for not seeing it. I never gave you a chance to.
But sometimes I wish you had looked a little harder.
Love,
Emilia
Kian sank down onto her bed, the letter trembling in his hands.
He had never known any of this. He thought he had. He thought they'd told each other everything. But now it felt like he'd only ever skimmed the surface of someone who was quietly drowning.
He looked around the room again.
The Polaroids stuck to her mirror. The notes in the margins of her books. The playlists scribbled on sticky notes.
How much of her had existed when he wasn't looking?
He lay back on her bed, the letter on his chest, and whispered,
"I'm sorry I missed it."