Archive of Our Own

Dear Will,

I don’t really know why I’m writing this now, except that it’s late and the house is quiet in a way that makes your thoughts louder than they should be. Everyone else is asleep. Mom left the hallway light on again, like she always does, even though I’m twenty and she still acts like I might trip over something in the dark and never get back up. I guess some things don’t change, no matter how many years pass. Maybe that’s why I finally sat down and did this. Because too many things have changed, and I’m scared if I don’t pin them down with words, they’ll just keep slipping further away from me.

It’s weird to think it’s been a few years since we last really talked—not just the occasional phone call where we say we’re “good” and mean something vague and unfinished. 1991 sounds like a fake year when I say it out loud, like something from one of those sci-fi paperbacks Dustin used to shove into my hands. Back then, the future was always lasers or flying cars or the world ending. No one ever wrote about how the hardest part would just be the distance. Not monsters, not gates, not even fear. Just space. Miles. Silence. The way someone can be alive and out there and still feel unreachable.

I keep thinking about us as kids, about how everything felt sharper then. Colors were brighter. Summers were longer. Even the bad stuff felt… immediate, like it mattered in a way that demanded your full attention. Now everything stretches out. Days blur. Weeks pass without anything big happening, and somehow that’s worse. I’ll be doing something completely ordinary—standing in line at the grocery store, fixing a loose string on my jacket, hearing a song on the radio—and suddenly I’ll remember you sitting cross-legged on the floor of the basement, drawing while the rest of us argued about rules. And it hits me so hard I have to look away from people so they don’t notice my face change.

I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I used to reread your old letters over and over, especially after you moved. Not just the words—your handwriting. The way you pressed down harder on certain letters, like you were trying to make sure they stayed. I’d trace the lines with my finger, like that could somehow shrink the distance between California and Indiana. It sounds stupid when I write it out, but back then it felt like the only thing I could do that actually meant something. Like if I concentrated hard enough, if I remembered you clearly enough, you wouldn’t fade.

High school ended faster than I thought it would. One minute we were complaining about homework, and the next people were throwing their caps in the air and crying like they were never going to see each other again. Some of them were right. Others were just dramatic. I remember looking for you in the crowd even though I knew exactly where you were—close enough that I could feel it, steady and familiar. Walking across that stage with you somewhere nearby felt unreal, like everything that mattered was happening quietly between us, not under the lights, not in front of everyone, but in the knowing that we’d made it through together.

I’ve been trying to figure out when exactly things changed between us. Not in a dramatic, everything-falls-apart way. Just… gradually. Like erosion. A little less time. A few more unreturned letters. Calls that got shorter because there was “stuff to do.” I tell myself it was normal. That this is what growing up looks like. But there’s a part of me that wonders if I should’ve fought harder, written more, said something I was too afraid to put into words back then.

Because here’s the thing, Will—I still carry you with me. In ways I don’t always admit, even to myself. When I make decisions, when I think about what kind of person I want to be, you’re there, like this quiet reference point. Would you think this was brave? Would you think it was kind? Would you look at me the way you used to, like you saw something in me I wasn’t sure I deserved? I don’t know if that’s fair to you, turning you into this constant measure in my head, but it’s the truth. And I promised myself, a long time ago, that if I ever wrote to you again like this, I wouldn’t lie.

Sometimes I wonder if you remember things the same way I do. If Hawkins feels like a dream to you now, something unreal and far away, or if it still lives under your skin like it does under mine. I wonder if you ever think about the basement, the bikes, the way we believed so fiercely that we could handle anything as long as we were together. I wonder if you ever miss me the way I miss you, or if I’ve slowly become just another chapter you’ve already closed.

I don’t want this letter to sound like regret, even though I know parts of it probably do. I just… needed you to know that you mattered. That you still matter. That there are nights like this, in years like this, where I sit at my desk with a pen digging into my fingers, trying to find the right words, and realizing that you’ve always been part of the story I tell myself about who I am. And I don’t think that ever really goes away.

I keep stopping and starting, tearing up pages, telling myself I’ve already said too much. But then I think about how much we survived, how much went unsaid back then because we were kids and scared and didn’t know how to name things. And it feels wrong to stay quiet now, when we finally have the words, even if they come late.

So I’m going to keep writing, even if my hand cramps and the ink smears, even if this letter turns into something ridiculous and too long and impossible to take back. Because if there’s one thing I learned from everything we went through, it’s that some connections don’t disappear just because you stop talking for a while. They wait. They linger

in the quiet spaces, the pauses between thoughts, the moments you don’t expect them to show up. They live in the background of your life, steady and persistent, even when you pretend you’ve moved on to louder, brighter things.

I don’t think I ever really moved on from you, Will. I just learned how to function around the absence.

College was supposed to make everything clearer. That’s what people said, anyway. New places, new ideas, new versions of yourself. And yeah, some of that was true. I met people who didn’t know anything about Hawkins, who looked at me without any history attached, and for a while that felt freeing. Like I could finally just be Mike, not Mike-who-survived-this or Mike-who-was-part-of-that. But the funny thing about starting over is that you bring yourself with you whether you want to or not. And you were already woven into me by then.

There were nights I’d sit on my dorm bed, textbooks open and untouched, thinking about the way you used to look at the world. How you noticed things the rest of us missed. How you felt things deeply, even when it hurt. I tried to be more like that. More attentive. More honest. I don’t know if I succeeded, but you were there in the trying.

I think what scares me the most is the idea that you might think I forgot. That you were just part of my childhood, boxed up and stored away like old toys or yearbooks. The truth is, I remember too much. I remember the sound of your laugh when something genuinely surprised you. I remember how focused you got when you were drawing, like nothing else existed. I remember the way you needed reassurance sometimes, even when you pretended you didn’t. Those memories didn’t dull with time. If anything, they sharpened, because now I understand them better than I did back then.

Back then, I didn’t know how to say what I was feeling without turning it into something clumsy or defensive or half-hidden behind jokes. I didn’t know how to reach for you without being afraid of what it might mean. I told myself we had time. That there would be a better moment later, when we were older, braver, less confused. And then suddenly later showed up, and you were already gone, and the words stayed stuck in my throat.

I don’t blame you for leaving. I never did. I just wish I’d told you how much it mattered that you were there in the first place.

Sometimes I try to picture what your life looks like now. The details feel fuzzy—I don’t know what your room looks like, or what your days are filled with—but I hope there’s color in it. I hope you’re still creating things, still finding ways to put what’s inside you into the world. I hope there are people who see you, really see you, and don’t try to rush you or change you into something easier to understand.

As for me… I’m still figuring things out. I guess everyone is, even if they pretend otherwise. There are days I feel like I’m finally becoming someone I can recognize, and other days where I feel like I’m still that kid on a bike, pedaling as fast as he can and hoping it’s enough. I’ve learned that confidence doesn’t show up all at once. It comes in fragments. Moments. Choices you make even when you’re scared.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve become fearless, that I say everything I mean now, that I don’t hesitate when something matters. That wouldn’t be true. But I’m trying. And writing this letter—actually finishing it instead of shoving it into a drawer—that feels like part of that trying.

If you ever wonder whether you made a difference, whether you left a mark that lasted, let me be your proof. You did. You still do. In ways you probably never realized, and in ways I’m still discovering.

I don’t know what will happen after this. Maybe you’ll write back. Maybe you won’t. Maybe this letter will just sit with you for a while, like a thought you don’t know what to do with yet. That’s okay. I’m not asking for anything specific. I just needed you to know that you were loved—are loved—in a way that time and distance didn’t manage to erase.

There’s something I need to admit, Will, and I’ve rewritten this part more times than I can count. I keep trying to make it sound smaller than it is, more reasonable, easier to accept. But the truth doesn’t really work like that, does it? It just stays true, no matter how gently you dress it up.

For a long time, I thought what I felt back then was just fear—fear of losing you, fear of everything falling apart, fear of being alone again after we’d already been through so much. And some of that was real. But it wasn’t all of it. It took me years to understand that what scared me most wasn’t the possibility that you’d leave, but the possibility that if you stayed, I wouldn’t know how to explain what you meant to me. That the feelings I had didn’t fit neatly into the boxes I’d been taught to use.

You were never just my best friend. And I think, deep down, I always knew that. I just didn’t know how to accept it back then.

When I look back now, it feels obvious in a way that almost hurts. The way my attention always went to you first. The way your silence bothered me more than anyone else’s anger. The way I felt this quiet panic whenever you pulled away, like the world was slightly off its axis and only you could set it right again. That wasn’t something I felt with anyone else. I tried to convince myself it was normal, that it was nothing special, that everyone felt like that about their friends. But even then, part of me knew I was lying.

I wish I’d been kinder to you in those moments when you needed me most. I wish I hadn’t brushed things off, or acted like I didn’t understand, or let my own confusion turn into distance. You deserved better than that. You deserved someone who could meet you where you were instead of hiding behind excuses and half-answers. I’m sorry I couldn’t be that person back then. I’m sorry it took me so long to grow into someone who could even begin to try.

There were times after you moved when I’d wake up from dreams where we were kids again—riding our bikes, arguing about games, sitting side by side without needing to fill the silence. And for a few seconds, everything would feel right. Then reality would come crashing back in, and the loss would hit so hard it felt physical. I never told anyone about those dreams. I didn’t know how. Saying your name out loud in that context felt too dangerous, like it might open something I wasn’t ready to face.

But here I am now, opening it anyway.

I don’t know how you see me these days, or if you still think about me at all. Maybe I’m just a memory you’ve already made peace with. Maybe you’ve moved forward in ways I can’t even imagine. If that’s true, I want you to know I don’t resent it. I just hope that, wherever you are, you’re not lonely. I hope you’re not shrinking yourself to make other people comfortable. I hope you’ve found a place where your softness isn’t treated like a weakness.

Because it never was. It was one of the bravest things about you.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about bravery, actually. About what it really means. We used to think it was about fighting monsters, about standing your ground no matter how scared you were. Now I think it’s also about honesty. About choosing to be seen, even when the outcome is uncertain. Writing this letter feels like standing on the edge of something vast and unfamiliar, not knowing whether I’ll fall or finally learn how to fly. And as terrifying as that is, it also feels right.

If I’m being completely honest—and I’m trying to be—I think a part of me has been waiting for you all this time. Not in some dramatic, movie-like way, but quietly. Patiently. Like you wait for a song to come back around on the radio, hoping you’ll catch it before it ends. I don’t know what I’m waiting for exactly. A sign. A word. A chance. Maybe just the courage to finally tell you all of this.

So here it is, written in ink instead of thought: you mattered to me in a way that went beyond friendship, beyond obligation, beyond nostalgia. You mattered in a way that shaped me. And no matter what happens after this—whether you write back, whether we reconnect, whether this is just a confession that lives on paper—I don’t regret feeling it. I don’t regret you.

I don’t know where this letter will end, Will. I just know I’m not done yet. There’s still so much I want to say, memories I haven’t touched, questions I’m afraid to ask, hopes I’ve barely let myself name. So I’ll keep going. I’ll keep letting the words come, even if they scare me, even if they change things forever.

Because some things are worth the risk.

And you always were worth the risk, even now, even after all this time. Especially now, I think, because I finally understand what it costs to stay silent. Silence doesn’t protect you the way you think it does. It just teaches you how to live with holes in your life and call them normal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about memory lately. Not the big moments everyone talks about, but the small ones that don’t seem important until years later. Like how you used to hum without realizing it when you were focused. Or the way you’d tug at your sleeve when you were nervous, like grounding yourself. I remember the smell of old paper and dust in the library, the way sunlight would land on your sketchbook, turning the pages almost gold. Those moments didn’t feel significant then. They feel enormous now. They feel like proof that what we had was real, not just something my mind exaggerated with distance.

I want you to know that I didn’t just miss you when things were bad. I missed you during the good parts too. When something made me laugh and my first instinct was to turn and tell you. When I accomplished something and wanted your quiet, genuine nod of approval more than anyone else’s praise. That kind of missing is harder to explain, because it’s not rooted in pain—it’s rooted in love. And I don’t use that word lightly, even now, even here on this page where I can’t see your reaction.

Love changes shape as you grow up. It gets less dramatic, less desperate, but deeper in a way that’s harder to ignore. It stops being about needing someone to survive and starts being about wanting someone to share the survival with. I think that’s what happened to me. Somewhere between then and now, my feelings for you didn’t fade—they settled. They became part of the foundation instead of the storm.

There were times I almost reached out properly. Times I sat with the phone in my hand, your number written on a scrap of paper even after I’d memorized it, and told myself, Just call. Just say his name. But every time, doubt crept in. What if I disrupted a life you’d already built? What if hearing from me only brought back things you’d worked hard to put behind you? I couldn’t stand the idea of being a weight in your life instead of something warm and familiar. So I stayed quiet. I told myself it was selfless. I’m starting to realize it was mostly fear.

I don’t know who you are now in all the ways that matter. I don’t know how you take your coffee, or what music you put on when you’re alone, or whether you still stay up too late working on something you care about. But I know the core of you. I know your gentleness, your loyalty, your stubborn hope. Those things don’t disappear. They evolve, sure, but they don’t vanish. And I’d like to know the version of you that exists now, if you’d let me.

I keep wondering if you ever felt the same way, even briefly. Not because I need validation, but because it would mean we were standing on the same ground without realizing it. But even if you didn’t—if your feelings were different, simpler, or already resolved—I still don’t regret writing this. Some truths deserve to be spoken regardless of how they’re received. I think you taught me that, without ever meaning to.

I’m not asking you to give me anything. Not an answer, not an explanation, not a promise. I just want you to have the choice I never gave you before: the choice to know. To see me clearly, without the confusion and fear that clouded things when we were younger. Whatever you decide to do with that knowledge is yours. I’ll respect it. I swear.

There’s a version of this letter where I stop here, tie it up neatly, sign my name, and pretend that’s enough. But that wouldn’t be honest either. Because there’s still this quiet hope threading through everything I’ve written. A hope that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t the end of our story. That there’s still space for something new—something slower, more intentional, built on who we are now instead of who we were forced to be too soon.

I don’t know what that would look like. Maybe it’s just letters at first. Long ones, like this, full of things we never got to say. Maybe it’s a phone call that lasts longer than it should. Maybe it’s a visit, awkward and careful and full of pauses we don’t rush to fill. Or maybe it’s simply the comfort of knowing we’re not strangers after all. Any of that would be enough for me.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. Truly. It takes a certain kind of patience and care to sit with someone else’s honesty, especially when it’s messy and overdue. You’ve always had that patience. I guess part of me is still trusting you with my heart, even now.

I don’t know when I’ll stop writing, Will. Every sentence feels like it opens the door to another. But for the moment, my hand is tired, and the sky outside my window is starting to lighten just a little. Morning always sneaks up on you like that—quiet, inevitable, full of possibility whether you’re ready for it or not.

I hope, wherever you are when you read this, that you’re safe. I hope you feel valued. And I hope you know that there is someone out here who never stopped believing in you, who carries you with him in ways that are gentle and enduring and real.

I want to tell you about Hawkins now, not because I think you miss it, but because it feels wrong to keep parts of my life separate from you when you’ve always been threaded through it anyway. The town hasn’t changed much. Some new shops, some old ones gone. The arcade closed, if you can believe that. I stood in front of the empty building the last time I was home and felt this strange mix of anger and resignation, like I’d expected it to last forever even though nothing ever does. The high school football field looks smaller than I remember. Everything does, really. Maybe that’s what growing up is—realizing the places that once held your entire world can fit inside you instead.

Your old house looks different too. Someone repainted it. I caught myself slowing down when I passed it, staring like I might see you through the window if I looked hard enough. I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. But for a second, the past felt so close it almost hurt to breathe.

I’ve been thinking about art lately. Not in the way teachers talk about it, all technique and history, but in the way you lived it. The way creating something was never just about the finished product for you—it was about understanding yourself better through it. I think that’s something I’ve been chasing without realizing it. Trying to make sense of myself by putting thoughts into words, actions into meaning. Maybe this letter is my version of a sketchbook, rough and overfull and honest in a way I don’t usually allow myself to be.

Do you remember how you used to get frustrated when something didn’t come out right? How you’d sigh and lean back, staring at it like it had personally betrayed you? I used to think that meant you were too hard on yourself. Now I think it meant you cared deeply. Caring deeply is exhausting, Will. It wears you down if you don’t learn how to protect it. I hope you’ve learned how. I hope you’ve found people who remind you to rest, who don’t take your effort for granted.

I wish I could tell you I’ve learned all the right lessons since then. That I know exactly how to love without fear, how to speak without hesitation, how to show up without second-guessing myself. The truth is, I’m still learning. But I’m learning because of you, not in spite of you. Because knowing you taught me that connection is worth the discomfort it brings with it. That opening yourself up is dangerous, yes—but closing yourself off is worse.

There were years where I dated people and wondered why something always felt slightly out of alignment. Like I was playing a role I understood intellectually but couldn’t quite inhabit emotionally. I don’t blame anyone for that. They were kind, and I tried to be kind too. But there was always this quiet comparison in the back of my mind—not about who they were, but about how I felt. About the ease I’d once known, the sense of being understood without having to explain every part of myself. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize that what I was missing wasn’t the past—it was you.

That realization didn’t come with fireworks or clarity. It came slowly, painfully, through moments of honesty I could no longer avoid. Through admitting that some bonds don’t fit into neat categories, and that pretending they do only causes more damage in the long run. I don’t know what name you’d give what I feel. I’m not sure I even need one. I just know it’s real, and it’s lasted, and it deserves to be acknowledged.

If this letter feels overwhelming, I understand. It might feel like too much to place in your hands all at once. But this is what happens when you compress years of unsaid things into ink. They come out dense. Heavy. I trust you to read this at your own pace, to set it down if you need to, to come back to it when you’re ready. You’ve always moved through the world thoughtfully. I don’t expect that to have changed.

I keep imagining where you might be reading this. A bedroom. A studio. Somewhere quiet, I hope. I wonder what expression crosses your face at certain parts. I wonder if you’ll recognize yourself in the way I describe you, or if it’ll feel like I’m talking about someone you used to be. Maybe both can be true. People grow, but their echoes remain.

I want to apologize again—not just for what I did wrong, but for what I didn’t do at all. For not asking the questions that mattered. For not checking in the ways I should have. For assuming you’d be okay without me when the truth is, I was the one who couldn’t figure out how to stay. I don’t expect forgiveness. I just want accountability to exist somewhere between us, even if it’s only on this page.

There’s something strange about writing your name over and over. It doesn’t lose its meaning. If anything, it gains weight. Will. It still feels like a word that points directly to you, not a version frozen in time, but the real person you’ve become. I hope you still recognize yourself when you hear it.

I don’t know what the future holds. I’ve stopped pretending I can predict it. But I know that whatever comes next, I don’t want to keep living as if the most important things should be left unsaid. I don’t want to wake up years from now with another letter half-written, another truth buried under fear. This is me choosing differently. Even if it’s late. Even if it’s messy.

If you decide to write back, I’ll read every word like it matters—because it will. If you decide not to, I’ll still be grateful that you existed in my life the way you did. That you shaped me. That you showed me what it meant to care without conditions. That kind of gift doesn’t expire.

I’m still here, Will. Still growing. Still learning how to be honest in ways that count. And for as long as you’re willing to let me; I’ll keep writing, even if my words start to blur together, even if this letter turns into something closer to a chronicle than a confession. At this point, it feels less like I’m trying to impress you or persuade you of anything and more like I’m finally allowing myself to exist honestly in relation to you. And that alone feels… new. Relieving. Terrifying. Necessary.

I want to talk about fear for a moment, because it’s been a constant companion of mine, whether I admitted it or not. Not the obvious kind—the kind with monsters and danger and adrenaline—but the quieter kind. The fear of being known. Of being seen too clearly and found lacking, or worse, found wanting in a way I didn’t know how to satisfy. With you, that fear was always sharper, because what we had mattered more. You mattered more. Losing you, even hypothetically, felt like losing a piece of myself I wasn’t sure I could replace.

I think that’s why I clung so tightly to the idea of “later.” Later I’d explain. Later I’d understand myself better. Later I’d find the right words. But later has a way of slipping through your fingers if you don’t grab it. And I didn’t. Not when it counted. So this letter is me grabbing it now, even if my grip is clumsy and my timing imperfect.

Do you remember how we used to talk about leaving Hawkins? About what life would be like somewhere else, somewhere bigger? We imagined it would solve everything—that distance from that place would mean distance from fear, from pain, from the things we didn’t know how to face. But the truth is, you don’t leave those things behind. You carry them. You just get better at hiding them, or naming them, or learning which ones are worth carrying at all. I think you were braver about that than I was. You faced things directly. I tended to circle them.

There’s a version of me that wonders what would’ve happened if I’d followed you when you left. If I’d chosen uncertainty over familiarity, movement over staying put. Not because I think it would’ve magically fixed everything, but because maybe it would’ve forced me to grow faster, to confront what I was avoiding. I don’t regret my life, exactly. But I do acknowledge the paths I didn’t take, and you’re always standing at the edge of one of them in my mind.

I want you to know that I’ve tried to be a good person. Not in a self-congratulatory way, just… honestly. I’ve tried to show up when people need me. I’ve tried to listen more than I speak. I’ve tried to unlearn the parts of myself that were shaped by fear instead of care. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. But whenever I question whether I’m doing enough, I think about the way you believed in people—how you gave them the benefit of the doubt, how you hoped, even when hope had hurt you before. That standard still guides me.

There are nights when I imagine what it would be like to sit across from you now, older, changed, but still unmistakably you. I imagine the awkwardness first—the pauses, the careful words, the way we’d both be trying to figure out where we stand. And then I imagine the ease returning, slowly, like muscle memory. The way conversation might start to flow again once we stop being afraid of saying the wrong thing. I don’t know if that’s realistic. But it’s a thought I hold onto when the world feels too fractured to make sense of.

I realize I’ve talked a lot about myself in this letter, and I hope it doesn’t come across as selfish. The truth is, this is the only way I know how to reach you—by being transparent about what’s lived inside me all these years. But I want to hear about you too. About the things that excite you now. The things that frustrate you. The ways you’ve changed, and the ways you’ve stayed the same. I don’t want a summary. I want the details. The texture of your life as it is, not as I imagine it.

If you’re angry with me for any of this, I’ll understand. Anger would mean I still matter to you in some way, and I’d take that over indifference any day. If you’re confused, that’s fair too. I’ve had years to sit with these feelings; you’re only encountering them now, all at once. Take whatever time you need. This isn’t a deadline. It’s an opening.

I keep thinking about how many versions of us there have been. Kids. Teenagers. Almost-adults pretending we knew what we were doing. And now this—whatever this stage is, where you’re old enough to recognize your mistakes but young enough to still change course. I don’t know which version you’ll see when you think of me. I hope, eventually, it can be this one: someone trying, sincerely, to do better.

The sun is higher now. Morning has fully arrived, and with it that strange sense of exposure, like everything you’ve written in the dark is suddenly visible. I haven’t sealed the envelope yet. I keep rereading what I’ve written, half-expecting to find a reason to stop, to tear it up, to decide it was all too much. But every time I reach the end, I feel the same thing: a quiet certainty that this needed to exist.

So I’ll keep going. Not because I have everything figured out, but because there are still truths left to tell, and I don’t want to live in a world where I keep them buried anymore.

I’m here, Will. Still choosing honesty. Still choosing you in the only way I know how right now: by staying present with the truth, even when it trembles in my hands. Even when it asks more of me than I’m comfortable giving. Especially then.

I keep thinking about how we used to measure time. Seasons. School years. Campaigns finished and restarted. Back then, time felt like something we could reset if it went wrong. Now it feels cumulative. Like everything stacks. Every choice, every silence, every almost. I carry those almosts with me, Will. Not as regrets exactly, but as reminders—markers of who I was when I didn’t yet know how to be braver.

There’s a moment I come back to a lot. It’s small, almost nothing. We were sitting close—too close, probably—and you said something offhand, something honest without trying to be. You looked at me like you trusted me to understand. And I remember feeling this jolt, like the ground had shifted under my feet. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t do anything. I just absorbed it and moved on like it hadn’t cracked something open inside me. I wish I could go back to that version of myself and tell him to stop. To stay there a second longer. To respond. But I can’t. All I can do is answer now.

I don’t expect you to meet me where I am immediately. I don’t expect symmetry. I don’t expect a mirror. What I hope for—what I quietly hope for—is the possibility of conversation. Of shared air. Of words passing back and forth without armor. Even if they’re hesitant. Even if they’re imperfect. Especially if they are.

There were years when I told myself that wanting this—wanting you—was indulgent. That it belonged to a time in my life I was supposed to outgrow. But I don’t believe that anymore. Some wants aren’t childish; they’re foundational. They’re the kind that teach you what home feels like, even when you’re far from it. You were that for me, whether either of us knew it or not.

I wonder sometimes if you ever felt like you were ahead of the rest of us. Not smarter—just… earlier. Like you were asking questions before the world was ready to answer them. I think that made things lonelier for you. I’m sorry if I added to that loneliness by not keeping up, by not meeting you where you were when it mattered. You deserved someone who didn’t lag behind their own understanding.

I want to be clear about something, because clarity feels important now: this letter isn’t an attempt to rewrite the past. I’m not asking for a do-over. I’m asking for recognition. For honesty to exist between us without pretending it’s something else. Whatever shape that takes—friendship, distance, something unnamed—I want it to be real. I don’t want us to live as ghosts to each other anymore.

There’s a steadiness in me now that I didn’t have before. I still doubt. I still hesitate. But underneath that, there’s this calm conviction I can’t ignore. Writing this hasn’t made me feel reckless. It’s made me feel aligned. Like I’ve finally stopped walking at an angle to my own life. I don’t know where that alignment will lead, but I trust it more than I trust fear.

If you’re reading this and feeling overwhelmed, please know that I’m not standing on the other end demanding anything. I’m just standing here, open. Available. Real. You can step closer, or you can stay where you are. Both are choices I’ll respect. The only thing I couldn’t live with anymore was staying silent.

I don’t know how long this letter will be by the time I actually send it. It’s already far longer than anything I’ve ever written to anyone. Maybe that’s fitting. You were never a small part of my life. Why should my words pretend otherwise?

There’s more I want to say—about the way your name still steadies me, about how I’ve learned to sit with vulnerability instead of running from it, about the future I’m trying not to imagine too precisely because I don’t want to trap it inside expectations. But I’ll keep going slowly. Thoughtfully. I’m not in a rush anymore.

I realized something the other day that surprised me. I was helping Mom clean out the garage—boxes of old junk, things we kept because throwing them away felt like erasing proof we’d lived. I found my old bike helmet, cracked on one side. I don’t know why that specific thing hit me so hard. Maybe because it reminded me of how fragile we were and how fearless we pretended to be anyway. We trusted the road. We trusted each other. We trusted that if we fell, someone would be there to help us back up. I think I lost some of that trust along the way. Writing to you feels like trying to reclaim it.

Do you ever think about how strange it is that some people witness you at your most unformed? They see you before you learn how to hide, before you polish yourself into something presentable. You saw me then. You saw the raw version, the one who reacted before thinking, who cared too much and didn’t know how to soften it. Most people only know the edited version of me now. You knew the original. That’s intimidating, even years later. But it’s also comforting, because it means there’s someone out there who remembers me honestly.

I wonder if you ever felt like you had to make yourself smaller around us. Like your intensity, your sensitivity, your way of feeling things all the way through might be too much. If you did, I’m sorry. I wish I’d told you—clearly, consistently—that those things weren’t burdens. They were gifts. They still are. The world has a habit of dulling people like you if they let it. I hope you didn’t.

I don’t talk much about loneliness, but I think you’d understand it better than most. Loneliness isn’t always about being alone. Sometimes it’s about being surrounded by people and still feeling untranslated. I’ve had conversations where every word landed wrong, where I walked away feeling like I’d performed rather than connected. With you, even silence felt communicative. Even when things were awkward, there was truth in the room. That’s rare. Rarer than I realized at the time.

There’s a part of me that’s afraid this letter will make you feel responsible for my feelings. I want to be very clear: that’s not what I want. These feelings are mine. I own them. I’ve lived with them, learned from them, grown because of them. I’m not handing them to you like a weight. I’m sharing them because they exist, and because you were part of how they came to be. That’s all.

I keep circling back to the idea of choice. Back then, so many things happened to us. We reacted. We survived. We didn’t always get to choose. This—this is a choice. Writing to you. Saying your name on the page without flinching. Allowing myself to want something without immediately dismissing it as unrealistic or selfish. Even if nothing changes outwardly, something has already shifted inside me. I don’t feel split anymore.

I don’t know if you’ve found your place yet. Not a location, but a sense of belonging. That feeling of being exactly where you’re meant to be, even if it’s imperfect. If you have, I’m genuinely glad. If you haven’t, you’re not failing. Some of us take longer. Some of us need to build it slowly, piece by piece, instead of discovering it fully formed. I think you’re the kind of person who builds.

There are things I’d like to ask you, but I won’t put them all here. Questions deserve space to breathe. Still, I’ll admit a few of them exist. Are you happy in the quiet moments, when no one’s watching? Do you feel understood where you are now? Do you still believe in the idea that people can know each other deeply, or has the world worn that belief down a little? I don’t need immediate answers. I just want the possibility of asking.

I used to think that if I ever said all of this, it would feel like an ending. Like once the truth was out, the story would close. But it doesn’t feel that way at all. It feels like a beginning I was too scared to recognize before. Not a dramatic one. A quiet one. The kind that doesn’t announce itself but changes everything anyway.

If you’re reading this and feeling something you don’t quite have a name for, that’s okay. You don’t have to label it. You don’t have to respond perfectly. You don’t even have to respond quickly. All I ask—if I can ask for anything—is that you don’t dismiss this as a relic of the past. I’m writing to you as I am now, not as a memory. I’m reaching forward, not backward.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep writing before I finally put the pen down. Maybe I’m afraid that if I stop, the courage will drain out of me. Or maybe I just want to stay in this space a little longer—the space where honesty exists without consequence yet, where everything is still possible.

There’s a calm in me now that wasn’t here when I started this letter. Not relief exactly—more like acceptance. Acceptance that this mattered, that you mattered, and that saying it out loud doesn’t diminish anything that came before. It honors it. It honors us.

I want you to know that no matter how you receive this—whether it feels like a door opening or simply a truth placed gently in your hands—I’m grateful you exist in the world at the same time I do. That we crossed paths when we did. That for a stretch of years, our lives were braided together in a way that left marks neither of us could fully erase even if we tried. Some people pass through your life and teach you how to survive. Others teach you how to feel. You did both for me.

If this is the last long letter I ever write to you, I can live with that. It wouldn’t erase what it contains. And if it isn’t—if this becomes the start of something new, something careful and intentional—I’ll meet that with the same honesty I’ve tried to give you here. Either way, I don’t regret this. I don’t regret finally choosing truth over comfort.

I don’t know where you’ll be when you finish reading this. I don’t know what expression will settle on your face, or how long you’ll sit with it before moving on with your day. But I hope, at the very least, it reminds you of something important: that you were seen, deeply and clearly, by someone who never stopped caring. That you were never invisible. That you were never insignificant.

I’m going to stop now—not because there’s nothing left to say, but because this feels like the right place to pause. Like setting a book down on a table instead of closing it forever. The rest can come later, if it’s meant to.

Take all the time you need.
Take care of yourself.

And know that, in whatever quiet way still exists between us,
I’m wishing you well.

Love, Mike