I found the letter folded inside a notebook I had not touched in years. The edges were worn, the ink smudged in places, as though it had carried not just words but storms. It was addressed only to a version of me that had once existed, the younger self who never imagined how far she would have to travel.

I sat at my desk and let my hands rest on the paper. A part of me feared reading it because I remembered the silence in which I wrote it. Back then, silence had been heavy, almost ...