Every Word Cuts to the Heart

An old notebook in the drawer rested on top of a yellowed note, a confession I hadn’t dared to deliver that summer. Years later, I ran into him at a class reunion. Someone stood beside him, smiling brightly, and I suddenly understood: some feelings, left unspoken, become a lifetime of regret. The “I love you” I never said, the dates I never kept, the goodbyes I never got to make, all lie sealed away in memory. Whenever I turn those pages, they bring a faint, wistful ache, like the dampness of rain.