Felix didn’t miss much.

He always noticed the soft things — how she tapped her fingers to songs that weren’t playing, how she smiled with just her eyes when she was tired. He noticed.

So when she stopped doing those things… he noticed that, too.

The silence. The distance. The way her laugh didn’t reach him anymore.

At first, he told himself she was just tired.

But then she started giving things away.

“I don’t need it,” she’d say, folding her favorite sweater, setting aside the book she’d reread four times.

And Felix, heart sinking, smiled anyway. Pretending he believed her.

Until he found the first letter.

Folded into the back of her planner, barely sealed. Not addressed. Not signed.

“If I could disappear quietly, I would. I just want it to hurt less—for everyone.”

He read it twice. Three times. His hands shook.

Then he found more.

Scattered in drawers, slipped between pages, ink smudged like she’d written them late, in secret.

“You won’t remember the way I looked at you, but I hope you’ll remember I loved you. I really, really did.”

That was when the panic hit.

He found her the next day — quiet on the balcony, hood up, eyes far away.

“Where are you going?” he asked, voice trembling.

She blinked. “What?”

“I read them,” he said. “The letters. I know you’re leaving.”

She froze.

“You don’t have to disappear,” he whispered. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

She didn’t speak.

But when he reached for her hand, she didn’t pull away.

And that was enough, for now.