he Weight of a Goodbye
The air at the St. Jude train station was thick with the smell of diesel and damp Earth. It was 1998, and the world felt infinitely large yet painfully small at the same time. Elias stood on the platform, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets. Inside the left pocket was a crumpled envelope—three pages of ink that held every secret his heart had ever kept.
Clara was leaning against the train door, her suitcase already tucked away inside. Her eyes, usually bright and defiant, were clouded with a quiet expectation. She was waiting for him to say it. Just one word. "Stay." Or perhaps, "I'll follow you."
"So, this is it," Clara said, her voice barely a whisper against the roar of the arriving engine.
Elias felt a lump in his throat. A million words rushed to his lips: I love you. I've loved you since we were seven. Don't go to London. I don't know how to breathe in a world where you aren't just a window-tap away.
But his mouth wouldn't move. The fear of rejection, the fear of holding her back from her dreams, acted like a heavy curtain.
"Yeah," Elias finally choked out, his voice flat and betraying nothing. "This is it. You're going to be a great doctor, Clara."
The conductor's whistle blew—a sharp, mournful sound. Clara's expression shifted. The hope in her eyes flickered and died, replaced by a hardened mask of resolve. She stepped up into the carriage.
"Goodbye, Elias," she said. She didn't look back.
As the train began to pull away, Elias finally pulled his hand out of his pocket. He took a step forward, the letter in his hand, but the gap between the platform and the train was already too wide. He watched the tail lights fade into the gray mist of the morning.
He looked down at the letter. It was the first of many. Over the next twenty years, he would write a thousand more, and like this one, none of them would ever be sent.