Eli didn't know when he started writing them.
Maybe it was after Luka's last visit.
Maybe it was during one of those quiet nights when the wind felt like a whisper and the silence carried more weight than usual.
Either way, the letters began to pile up—folded pieces of paper tucked inside Mira's sketchpad, hidden between pages filled with drawings that had already said everything she needed to say.
They weren't meant for anyone to read.
Not really.
They were just things he needed to say out loud, even if only the silence would hear them.
Dear Mira,
I saw a boy today who looked like he was listening to something no one else could hear. He stood by the train tracks for a long time, eyes closed, head tilted like he was waiting for a song only he knew.
I wanted to tell him that it's okay. That silence doesn't mean you're alone. It just means you're hearing things the rest of us aren't ready for yet.
I hope you still listen.
I hope you still draw.
And I hope wherever you are, there's someone who understands your silence the way I always did.
—Eli
Luka started writing too.
From wherever he went.
Wherever silence called him next.
He never stayed in one place for long. Just long enough to feel the echoes settle around him like dust in forgotten corners. Then he'd move on, following something neither of them could explain.
But every few months, Eli would find a letter in his mailbox.
No return address.
Just his name.
And words that reminded him she hadn't been forgotten.
Dear Eli,
I found another door today. Not the same kind. Not beneath a birch tree or hidden in the roots of something old. But something similar. Something that listened.
I didn't open it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But I stood near it for a while. Just long enough to remember what it felt like to hold her hand and walk into something we didn't understand.
Do you think she knew this would happen? That we'd keep going without her?
I hope so.
Because even though I can't hear the echoes like before, I still feel her sometimes. In the rhythm of my footsteps. In the pauses between notes. In the way the wind shifts just right through my headphones.
She's still here.
We just don't need to hear her the same way anymore.
—Luka
Miss Dara started collecting letters at the school.
She called it "Letters to the Silent" —a project where students could write messages to people they couldn't speak to anymore. Some wrote to lost family members. Others to friends who had moved away. A few simply addressed their letters to someone who understands .
One girl drew spirals in the margins of hers.
Another boy wrote a lullaby he didn't know he remembered.
They left them in a wooden box by the library window.
Sometimes, Eli stopped by just to look at them.
To remind himself that silence wasn't emptiness.
It was just waiting.
For someone to listen.
Back at the hardware store, Eli added another letter to the stack.
This one was short.
Dear Mira,
Today, I drew you again.
Standing at the edge of the forest.
Watching me.
Smiling.
I think I'm finally learning how to carry your silence without breaking under it.
Thank you for teaching me how to listen.
—Eli
He tucked it into the sketchpad.
Then placed it back on the chair by the window.
Because some part of him still believed—
That someday, when the wind shifted just right—
She would read it.
Even if she never spoke a word.