Graduation came quietly.
Issa expected it to feel monumental, like a door slamming shut behind her, but instead it felt like standing in an open field—wide and unfamiliar and terrifying in its freedom. The gym buzzed with families and cameras and the kind of laughter that tried to pretend endings weren't happening.
She adjusted the cap on her head and scanned the crowd without meaning to.
Max stood near the exit, talking to his parents. When their eyes met, there was no jolt this time—just recognition. A soft smile passed between them, brief and unspoken.
That was enough.
The letters stayed in the drawer for a long time.
Issa left for college three hours away. Her dorm room smelled like fresh paint and new beginnings. At night, when the world finally quieted, she unpacked the notebook and read the letters she had written to someone she no longer needed.
They didn't hurt the way they used to.
They felt like proof—proof that she had loved deeply, that she had survived it.
She didn't add any new pages.
Weeks turned into months.
Issa learned who she was without orbiting someone else's gravity. She spoke up more. She laughed louder. She let people see her without apology.
One afternoon, sitting in the campus café, she caught herself smiling at a stranger across the room. The realization startled her—not because it felt wrong, but because it felt possible.
She saw Max one last time that winter.
They ran into each other by accident at a coffee shop back home, both surprised, both hesitant. Conversation came easily now, free of longing.
"You look happy," he said.
"I am," Issa replied. And again, it was true.
"I'm glad," he said. "You deserve that."
So do you, she almost said.
But some things don't need to be spoken to be understood.
They hugged—brief, warm, final.
That night, Issa took the notebook out one last time.
She didn't write a letter to Max.
She wrote one to herself.
You survived loving someone who couldn't love you back. You learned to choose yourself. Don't forget that.
She closed the notebook and placed it in the bottom of her drawer—not hidden, just complete.
Love, Issa realized, doesn't always stay.
But it teaches you how to become someone who can be loved fully—out loud, without shrinking.
And as she turned off the light and lay back in her bed, Issa felt something new settle into her chest.
Not longing.
Not regret.
But peace.