The Morning I Folded Your Letters Back Into The Drawer

I knew it was finished when I folded your letters neatly and slid the drawer shut instead of rereading them one last time.

The bedroom was pale with early light and the curtains lifted slightly with the breeze that came through the cracked window. Dust drifted in the quiet and the floor was cold beneath my feet. The drawer made a soft wooden sound when it closed and that sound felt louder than it should have like a decision echoing in an empty room. I rested my hand there for a moment longer than necessary and then stepped back as if the drawer might reopen itself if I did not watch it.

Outside the town was just beginning to wake. A screen door slammed somewhere down the street. A truck engine turned over and settled into a steady idle. The smell of wet pavement lingered from the rain the night before. I made coffee and stood at the sink waiting for it to finish because sitting felt too final too early in the day.

Your letters had arrived irregularly never on a schedule I could rely on. Some were only a page long and some filled both sides of the paper with tight careful handwriting. You wrote about the small town you had moved to for work the one that reminded you of ours but with wider roads and fewer trees. You wrote about the silence of your rented house and the way the wind sounded different there. You did not write about missing me directly. You never had. You let the spaces between sentences do that work.

We had grown up knowing each other in the casual way people do in towns like this. Same schools same parades same river in the summers. We became something else later after you came back from the city quieter and more deliberate. Our relationship unfolded slowly like we were both afraid of startling it. I thought that meant it would last.

When you told me you were leaving again you did it gently as if that would soften the truth. We sat on the back steps and watched the light fade and you said you needed to see who you were somewhere no one knew your history. I said I understood and believed I did because loving someone in a small town teaches you how to let go without making a scene.

The letters started a week after you left. I waited for them more than I admitted to myself. I learned the rhythm of the mail and the sound of the truck. Each envelope felt like proof that what we had was still real somewhere even if not here.

I kept them in the drawer beside the bed tied with a ribbon I had found in the kitchen. At night I sometimes took them out and spread them across the quilt rereading lines I knew by heart. In the mornings I folded them back carefully and told myself that waiting was a temporary state.

Summer passed and then fall. The leaves turned and fell and the town prepared for winter. Your letters came less often. When they did they were shorter. You wrote about work and neighbors and plans that did not include me. I told myself that was normal that people grew busy that distance changed things.

The morning I folded them back into the drawer without reading them the air was crisp and the sky was clear. I felt calm in a way that surprised me. Sadness was there but it no longer pressed against my ribs. It sat quietly waiting to be acknowledged.

Later that day I walked through town and noticed how familiar everything still was. The bakery smelled the same. The river moved at the same slow pace. People waved and asked how I was and I answered honestly enough.

That evening I sat on the porch with a sweater around my shoulders and watched the light fade. I thought about writing you one last letter explaining something I could not quite name. Instead I stayed still and listened to the sounds of the town settling into night.

Weeks later the drawer stayed closed. The ribbon remained tied. I did not throw the letters away. I did not need to. Their weight had changed. They were no longer something I carried forward only something I had carried.

On a cold morning near the start of winter I opened the drawer again. I touched the top envelope and felt gratitude instead of longing. I closed the drawer softly and went outside into the day.

The town breathed around me steady and familiar. I walked down the street with empty hands and a quiet chest and for the first time since you left I did not feel like I was waiting for something to arrive.