I still remember the last message you sent.
It wasn't profound. It wasn't long. Just a quick "talk later" — like every other day. But "later" never came. And I've been stuck in that unfinished sentence ever since.
I've replayed everything in my head, again and again, like trying to solve a riddle with no answer. One day we were laughing like we always did—voice notes full of inside jokes, endless banter—and then you were just… gone. Not dead, not blocked, not overseas. Just absent. Emotionally. Physically. Silently.
And I wish I could hate you for it. But I can't.
Because I loved you too much for too long. Still do, in ways I don't always admit to myself.
We weren't lovers. Not officially. Not publicly.
But we were something, weren't we?
Something bigger than friendship but too quiet to name.
A connection that felt like home even when the world felt foreign.
We knew each other in a way that made small talk feel like betrayal. I knew the things that made you smile when you pretended to be fine and I knew how you hated silence, but not the kind people think — you hated the silence inside your own mind, the kind that echoed.
You once told me that, "You don't want to be a burden."
And maybe that was the beginning of the goodbye.
You said it so casually, like it was just a comment. But now I hear it like a warning — like a foreshadowing in a story I didn't realize we were ending.
And I wonder… did I make you feel like one?
Did I miss the moment you started pulling away?
Was I too consumed with my own chaos to see yours unraveling quietly in the background!?
I never got to tell you this, but your presence saved me in more ways than you'll ever know.
You saw the parts of me I tried to hide from everyone else. And not only did you not run, you sat with them. You made the darkness feel less dangerous.
You made me feel like being soft wasn't a weakness.
You made me laugh on days I wanted to disappear.
You became the voice I heard in my head when I didn't trust my own. And then you vanished.
And no, this isn't a guilt trip.
I'm not writing this to drag you back.
I'm writing because the silence has grown too loud inside of me, and someone needs to hear what I've been whispering to the walls.
Maybe I just need to say goodbye, finally, even if it's to a ghost.
Some nights, I still type out a message to you.
Not to send. Just to remember what it feels like to talk to you.
I'll write:
"Hey, just checking in."
Or:
"Remember when we stayed up all night talking about nothing?"
Or:
"I saw someone today that looked like you, and I swear my heart forgot how to beat for a second."
And then I delete it. Because what's the point?
You made your choice. And maybe it was necessary.
Maybe you were hurting in ways I'll never understand.
Maybe you needed to save yourself, and I wasn't part of that salvation.
But I wish… I just wish you had said goodbye.
I would've understood.
I would've fought the sadness with grace.
I would've wrapped our memories in soft cloth and stored them gently instead of letting them rot inside my chest.
I would've said thank you.
I would've told you how much you meant to me.
I would've let you go with love, not confusion.
But instead, I've spent months arguing with your absence like it owes me an explanation.
I hope you're okay.
I really do.
I hope you found peace, or at least a little quiet in your mind.
I hope you wake up without the weight you carried when we knew each other.
I hope you have someone who makes you laugh the way you made me laugh.
And I hope they stay.
Because even if you never come back — even if this letter stays buried in my drafts, never reaching you — I need you to know that you mattered. That you still do.
This isn't a love letter.
It's a funeral.
Not for you — you're still out there, I hope —
But for the version of us that existed in a world before goodbye.
So here it is.
Goodbye.
Not because I stopped caring.
But because I have to.
Because waiting for you to return is like waiting for rain in the desert — possible, but fatal.
And this letter-it's for you.
Even though I know you'll never read it.
This is me saying all the things I've rehearsed in my head but never got to speak out loud. All the versions of "why?" and "how could you" and "did I matter?" All the words I've swallowed so I wouldn't seem weak.
You broke something in me when you left.
Not just the connection-but the trust.
You taught me to doubt the people who stay too long, and to flinch when someone promises forever.
If you ever read this — if somehow my words find their way back to you — I hope you smile.
Even if it's just for a second.
Even if you're with someone else.
Even if you've forgotten the sound of my voice.
Just smile.
That would be enough.
Forever unfinished,
But here's what else you unknowingly taught me:
That I can survive silence.
That I can rebuild myself after disappearing acts.
That I am still whole, even after being treated like I wasn't.
I stopped waiting for your apology.
I stopped checking for your name.
I stopped hoping you'd come back and explain everything.
Because I don't need your explanation anymore to heal.
I still write to you sometimes-letters like this. Not because I'm stuck in the past, but because I'm freeing myself from it.
Every word I write pulls your ghost out of me. Every sentence becomes a small act of closure.
This is my goodbye.
Even though never gave one.
Not because I hate you.
But because I can't carry you with me anymore.
You were a chapter in my story.
Not the whole book.
And today, I turn the page.
To the one who left without goodbye, I forgive you.
But I'm not writing you into the next chapter.
—The One You Left Behind.