The sky was gray when I left the house, a dull kind of gray that made everything feel heavier. My shoes scuffed against the cracked pavement as I made my way to the old bridge, the one we used to sit under when things got too loud at home.

I clutched the letter in my pocket — the one I never sent. The words inside were messy, smudged with ink where my hands trembled, but it was the truth. Everything I never said to him. Every apology, every laugh, every I miss you wrapped up in a wrinkled piece of paper.

“I’ll leave it there,” I muttered to myself, as if saying it aloud made it easier. “He might find it… if he ever comes back.”

I crouched by the old oak tree, the one with our initials carved into it, and tucked the letter beneath a stone. The wind picked up, and for a second, I swore I could hear him laughing, clear as day, like it was two years ago and nothing had changed.

But it had. He was gone. And no letter, no memory, no desperate wish could rewind time.

I stayed there until the sky darkened and the cold bit at my fingertips. No one came. No one ever did.

And as I stood to leave, my heart heavy and hollow, I whispered to myself, “I guess it was all in vain.”