She didn't mean to open it.
The letter had sat folded in her backpack for weeks, sealed inside a pale blue envelope, her father's careful handwriting stretched across the front:
For Elena – when you're ready.
She wasn't ready. Not then. Not ever. That was the point.
The envelope had softened at the corners, worn smooth by restless fingers and time. Sometimes, late at night, she would pull it out and cradle it like a river-worn stone—familiar, cold, impossible to let go. But she never opened it.
Not until tonight.
She sat in the back seat again. Same driver. Same quiet sanctuary. Same unspoken understanding.
"Just twenty minutes," she whispered, curling her legs beneath her like a shield. Her voice was raw, cracked as if it had been locked away for days. Maybe it had. The driver glanced at her briefly in the rearview mirror, eyes soft but unreadable, and gave a quiet nod.
Outside, the city slipped by in pools of amber and shadow. A faint mist curled at the edges of streetlamps. Earlier rain left puddles that fractured broken neon signs and flickered tail-lights. Tires whispered against the wet asphalt, a constant, soothing hum.
The car moved with the rhythm of silence—dense, not empty, sacred.
Her dorm was less than a mile away, but she no longer went straight there. The rooms felt small—too loud with the wrong noises, too empty with the right ones. Her roommates were kind—offering playlists and gum—but they didn't know her. They didn't ask. And she preferred it that way.
Her fingers found the envelope again, tucked between her poetry notebook and an unused bus ticket.
Her father had died three weeks ago.
No service. No ceremony. Just a voicemail from the nurse—calm, rehearsed. He went peacefully. He asked me to give you something.
She'd gone alone to collect it. A plain envelope, trembling faintly in the nurse's hand. Her father's name signed on the hospice log. No last words spoken aloud. Only this.
She'd shoved it in her bag on instinct—as if hiding it might hold back grief.
He wasn't a man of words. When he spoke, it was clipped and practical—turn off the lights, clean your shoes, don't waste time. So the letter terrified her—not for what it might say, but because he had written it at all.
The car turned onto the bridge. Headlights shimmered across the river's surface, broken and shifting with the current. Elena sat straighter, searching the water for a sign, an omen. She remembered how, as a child, he used to take her fishing here. Neither spoke much on those trips, but it was their silence that made her feel closest to him—like their quiet was a shared secret, not emptiness.
The driver glanced back once. He didn't speak. He never did. That was why she kept coming back to him—why she chose his car even when others arrived faster. He never asked questions. Never offered false comfort. He simply drove—and sometimes that was all she needed.
Her fingers lingered on the envelope, heart tightening.
She pulled the letter free.
The paper was colder than it should be.
She turned it over once, twice. Then hesitated.
Finally, she tore it open.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded neatly. Faint blue lines. His handwriting—a little shaky, but still unmistakably his. She held it up to the dim window light and began to read.
Elena,
I don't have many words left. I don't think I ever knew how to use them well.
I was angry at the world for a long time. I think I made you carry some of that. Maybe too much. That's mine to own.
I want you to know something, and I want it to be plain:
You were never hard to love.
I just didn't know how.
If I had more time, I'd learn. I'd ask about your poems. I'd listen without correcting. I'd try.
But now, I only have this.
Don't carry my sadness. Please.
Live. Please.
—Dad
The words blurred. Her hands trembled as she pressed them against the paper, as if willing them steady. Her breath caught. Her throat clenched.
She hadn't cried when they called. Hadn't cried at the hospice. Hadn't cried when she stood outside his empty apartment, staring at unopened mail piled like forgotten memories.
But this—this broke her.
"You were never hard to love."
Her hand flew to her mouth, sobs ripping free before she could stop them. One ragged inhale, then another. Her shoulders curled inward, folding herself small. She tried to muffle the sound, but grief had waited too long. It poured out, raw and relentless.
Outside, the streetlights flickered in slow, golden pulses. Her reflection looked strange—like someone half-drowned, surfacing for the first time in weeks. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Real.
She folded the letter again, gently this time—not like garbage, not like something to fear, but something precious. She slipped it between pages of poems she'd never shared.
The driver said nothing. But she knew he'd heard everything.
"I think…" she whispered, voice ragged, "I think I want to go home."
His eyes met hers in the mirror. He nodded once.
Took the next exit.
They didn't speak again. But the silence between them had shifted—not heavy, not hollow. Just real.
As the university gates drew near, she rolled down the window.
Cold wind rushed in—sharp, clean, and alive. It tangled in her hair, stung her cheeks.
Elena closed her eyes and breathed deep.
For the first time in weeks, it didn't feel like drowning.
It felt like letting go.