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There's something about paper that makes the truth easier to hold.

Maybe it's the way ink stains feel permanent. Or the way you can fold up the words you're too scared to speak and pretend they never existed at all.

That's what I did every night for a week.

I wrote letters I never planned to send.

To Jace.

To the boy who had been my best friend, my first almost-love, my first heartbreak. The boy who knew every version of me-except the one I was becoming.

The first letter started simple.

I folded that one into fourths and hid it under my pillow.

The next night, I wrote more.

Some letters I crumpled up immediately. Others I kept.

But none of them made the ache fully go away.

?

One morning, Kael caught me burning a stack of them behind the training hall.

He didn't ask what they were.

Just sat beside me, watching the flames turn words into ash.

"You don't have to erase the past," he said gently. "But you don't have to carry it either."

"I thought writing them would help."

"Did it?"

I paused. "A little."

Kael reached into his jacket and pulled something out-a thin strip of leather cord.

"For your wrist," he said. "A Crescent keepsake. We wear them during new beginnings."

I hesitated before taking it.

"Is this a beginning?" I asked.

He looked at me like I already knew the answer.

"That's up to you."

I tied it on.

Not because I was ready to forget.

But because I was finally ready to move forward.

?

That night, I wrote one final letter.

I'm not angry anymore.

I just hope one day, when you look back, you understand what you lost.

I would've chosen you.

But now...

I'm choosing me.

Then I folded it gently.

And let the wind take it.