It started with the first envelope.

No return address. Just your name, written in a looping, careful hand you didn’t recognize. Inside: a letter. Simple, almost shy. “The days feel heavy, but thinking of you makes them lighter.”

You thought it was a mistake at first. Some secret admirer who had sent it to the wrong person. But then another arrived. And another.

Every week, without fail, a new letter came—words spilling across paper with ink-stained honesty you hadn’t realized you needed. Whoever they were, they seemed to know you. Your favorite books, the way you chewed your pen when you thought too hard, the small cracks in your armor you never showed anyone.

You caught yourself looking forward to the mail more than anything else.

Months passed before the truth slipped out. You were watching an interview late at night, Marie laughing on-screen, talking about filming abroad and the little rituals that kept her sane. She mentioned how she wrote letters every night, even if she couldn’t send them.

But you recognized the way she held her pen. The slight slant of her handwriting in a close-up shot of her script notes.

The realization hit like thunder: it had been her all along. Marie. Your friend. The one you thought was untouchable, too far away, too impossible.

You stared down at the stack of worn, folded letters on your desk, your chest tight with something you couldn’t ignore anymore.