He Wrote Her 7 Letters. She Only Got 1.

He poured his soul into every letter.
But someone made sure she’d never read them.  

Alexandra knows the risks. She always has. Since the moment Spencer boarded the ship and promised he would come back, she understood what was at stake. Ships go missing. Wars break men. Love, no matter how deep or fierce, can fade. And yet, every single day, she waits.

There is a particular quiet that settles in the house she once shared with Spencer. Not the kind born of peace, but the hollow silence of absence. His boots still sit by the door, scuffed and sturdy, untouched since he left. The books he half-finished remain on the shelf, their spines slightly bent where his thumbs once held them open. And around her neck, always, is the silver locket he gave her—the one with his picture on the left, and a pressed violet on the right, the flower he picked from their garden the day before he left.

Hope Wears Thin

At first, the waiting felt almost noble. Love, after all, is patient. She wrote to him every week without fail, letters filled with the mundane and the meaningful: the color of the sky, the state of the roses, how the dog still sleeps by the foot of the stairs hoping to hear his footsteps.

His early letters were warm, full of hope. He told her he missed her laugh, described the sea as “both cruel and magnificent.” He asked her to kiss the cat for him. Promised he would be home before the year’s end.

But as the seasons turned and the months dragged on, the letters changed. They grew shorter. Sparse. The ink seemed colder, less personal. He stopped describing the ocean. He stopped asking questions. Eventually, they came once a month, then once every two.

And then, nothing.

When Silence Becomes an Answer

The worst part, Alexandra realized, was not the silence. It was the way people looked at her when they saw she was still waiting. How friends exchanged glances when she mentioned his name. How conversations would stall when she brought up something Spencer once said or did. How her mother quietly began suggesting she “move on.”

But how does one move on from a soul that is still tethered to theirs? How does one bury someone without a body, without proof, without an ending?

In town, the baker no longer asks about him. The mailman hesitates before handing her letters. No one says it, but she sees it in their eyes: they don’t believe he’s coming back.

Some days, neither does she.

When Waiting Becomes the World

There’s a rhythm to her waiting now. Mornings begin with tea by the window, the one that overlooks the road he would walk up to come home. She imagines it every day: Spencer, tall and weatherworn, smiling that soft smile of his, carrying the small duffel he never let anyone else pack.

She would run to the door. He would lift her up. They’d laugh. Cry. Apologize. Begin again.

But it’s always in her head.

And yet, still, she waits.

Sometimes, she writes letters she doesn’t send. “Dear Spencer,” she starts, and then tells him everything: how she finally fixed the broken fence, how the lilacs bloomed too early, how the stars have been unusually bright lately. She tells him she misses him. She tells him she still believes.

And then she tucks the letter in a box beneath her bed, next to the others, the ones he’ll never read.

The Quiet Truth

What if Spencer never returns?

It’s a question Alexandra dares not ask aloud, but it echoes in her bones. It lingers in the stillness of the night, in the wind that rattles the shutters, in the spaces between her breaths. She has imagined every possibility. Maybe he was taken. Maybe he chose not to come back. Maybe he’s lost, alone, trying to find his way home.

But maybe… he’s already gone.

There’s a certain cruelty in not knowing. Closure is a gift the missing deny the living. And in the absence of truth, the heart spins countless stories. Hope becomes a form of grief. Love becomes a form of waiting.

She wears the locket not just because it reminds her of him—but because it’s the last thing she has that still feels real. It’s her tether to a love that once was, and maybe, somewhere, still is.

But as the years stretch forward, as friends drift away, as the house grows older and quieter, one truth grows harder to ignore:

Sometimes, love is not enough to bring someone home.

A Different Kind of Goodbye

There’s a difference between forgetting and letting go. Alexandra understands that now. Letting go doesn’t mean she loved him less. It doesn’t mean he didn’t matter. It simply means she must find a way to live, even if he doesn’t return.

So she begins to make small changes. She plants new flowers in the garden—ones he never saw. She donates the books he never finished. She starts saying yes to invitations again. Not because she’s stopped waiting. But because she’s learned that waiting doesn’t have to be a prison.

On the mantel, next to his photograph, she lights a candle every night. A quiet ritual. A soft prayer.

“Wherever you are,” she whispers, “I hope you’re at peace.”

And maybe, just maybe, one day she’ll stop watching the road. Maybe she’ll take off the locket and place it gently in the box beneath her bed. Maybe she’ll stop counting the days.

But for now, she still waits. A little more gently, a little less hopefully, but with love still quietly blooming in her chest.

Because even if Spencer never returns…

She did. To herself.