It was a soft, grey afternoon when Elirys climbed into the attic. The air was laced with cold and the scent of forgotten things cardboard, wood, a hint of something floral that no longer bloomed. The attic was the kind of quiet that made sound feel like an intrusion.
She hadn't been here in years.
Her fingers traced the edge of boxes stacked like tired memories. She hadn't meant to go digging. She had only been looking for her old watercolors. Something quiet to pass the quiet.
But her hands brushed against a box much older, tucked behind a stack of fabric and brittle paperbacks. A small tin box, familiar in the way a dream is familiar, though you can't place where you've seen it before.
Inside were folded scraps of memories. Old receipts. A broken chain. A child's drawing with stars and crooked hearts. A photo of her, curling at the edges, eyes wide and trying not to cry, her parents blurred in the background. And beneath all of it, a letter.
The envelope was yellowed at the edges, sealed but never stamped.
She remembered it now. She had written it two winters ago, on a night when the loneliness had pressed down so hard she thought she might shatter beneath it. She had written it with shaking hands and blurry vision. Written it because silence with them had become too sharp, and she didn't know how to scream without breaking their hearts.
She sat down, the cold of the floor climbing into her bones, and opened the envelope with careful fingers. The paper crackled as if it, too, remembered.
"I know you love me. I never doubted that. You gave me everything ~ warmth, safety, a home. But love isn't always enough, is it?
You don't understand me. Maybe you never did. Maybe I never let you. But I tried. I swear I tried. I didn't mean to disappoint you, I didn't mean to turn out so… strange.
I'm not angry. I just wanted to be seen. I wanted you to see the girl who stayed up writing letters to no one. The girl who drew pictures of the moon because she felt less alone when it was out.
I wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted to give you the world, to make you laugh, to be the daughter you dreamed of having. But I wasn't. I was quiet. Different. I listened more than I spoke, I drew pictures of feelings I didn't know how to name, and I stayed up too late trying to write my heart into words.
You once said I shouldn't have been born. That it was a mistake to bring me into this world. You said it out of pain, I know. But it's haunted me ever since.
I don't hate you. I never could. I just wish you could see me. Really see me."
Elirys read it slowly, like she was inhaling each line. Elirys's eyes burned. The ink had faded in places, smudged where her tears had once fallen. When she finished, she stayed still for a long time, the letter open in her lap, her hand resting over her heart. She folded the letter gently.
What would they say if she sent it now?
Would it fix anything? Would it break something else?
Downstairs, the kettle began to whistle. The world was still turning, despite it all.
She placed the letter back in the tin, not sealing it this time. Maybe someday she'd send it. Maybe not.
But today, she had read it. Today, she had remembered. And that was something.
Elirys stood, brushing the dust from her sleeves. Her heart was a little heavier, but her breath felt steadier.
Some truths were too fragile to speak aloud. But written in ink, folded into silence, they lived.