Sad short love stories usually end in tears. This one starts there, and it ends somewhere better.
It is about a shoebox, forty-one letters, and a man who loved his best friend for eleven years without ever saying it. If you like sad love stories that will make you cry, keep a tissue close. If you like romantic short stories for adults, stay until the last line.
The Box in the Grocery Store
Leo’s mom found me in the grocery store, standing in front of the tea.
I did not see her at first. I was reading the back of a box, and I was not really reading it. I had been standing there for a while. That was how my days went then.
“Maya?”
I turned around. Mrs. Carter was holding a shoebox against her chest with both hands, the way you hold something that might break.
I had not seen her in three years. Not since the day Leo left for Scotland.
“Hello, Mrs. Carter,” I said. “How are you?”
She did not answer. Her eyes filled up, right there in the middle of the aisle. Then she pushed the box into my hands.
“He told me to burn them,” she said. “I tried. I stood over the sink with a match, and I could not do it.”
“Burn what?”
“Read them, Maya. Please. I think I did a bad thing by keeping them. I think I did a worse thing by waiting so long.”
She kissed my cheek, and she left. She left her cart in the aisle.
I stood there holding the box. On the lid, in Leo’s messy handwriting, it said: For Maya. Maybe never.
Eleven Years of Almost
I did not open it in the store. I did not open it in the car. I carried it home to my apartment in Chicago, put it on the kitchen table, and made tea I did not drink.
Leo had been my best friend for eleven years.
We met at fourteen, when he sat down next to me in math class and said, “I don’t understand any of this. Do you?” I didn’t. We failed the same test together, and we ate cold fries afterward, and that was that.
He was there when my dad got sick. He was there when my dad died. He sat on the floor outside my bedroom door for four hours, because I would not let him in, and he would not leave.
Then he took a job in Edinburgh. He said it was too good to say no to. He hugged me at O’Hare for a very long time. He said, “Text me every day.”
I did, for a while. Then I got busy, and he got quiet, and the texts became fewer, and then they were birthdays only.
I never called him. I want to say that clearly. I never once called him.
I opened the lid.
Forty-One Letters
There were forty-one letters. Each one had a date on the envelope. None of them had a stamp.
I started from the top.
The first letter was dated the week he left.
Maya,
I am writing this on the plane. The man next to me keeps looking at me because I am crying a little. I told him I have allergies. On a plane. He did not believe me.
I should tell you something I have never said. I will not send this, so it is safe to say it.
I think I have loved you since the day we failed that math test.
I know you don’t feel it. That is okay. I know about Ryan. I know you are happy. So I am going to go far away and let you be happy, and I will get over this.
People get over things. Right?
Leo
I put the letter down. My hands were shaking.
Ryan.
Ryan was a man I dated for six weeks, three years ago. I told Leo about him one night on the phone. I said it was “just something casual.” I said it twice, because I wanted him to hear it.
I wanted him to say something. Anything.
He said, “He sounds lucky.” Then he said he had to go.
I had thought he did not care.
I read all night.
One letter was from a Sunday in his first month.
I climbed Arthur’s Seat today. It is a big hill in the middle of the city. At the top, I said your name into the wind. A man with a dog gave me a look.
It was worth it. I felt closer to you for about ten seconds.
One letter was from my birthday, the first year he was gone.
Happy birthday. You did not call. That is okay. I know you are busy.
I bought a small cake and ate it alone in my apartment. I put one candle on it. I made a wish, and I will not tell you what it was, because it will not come true if I tell.
It was you. It was always you.
One letter was from the night I got my promotion.
Your mom posted a photo. You were smiling so big. I looked at it for an hour.
I am so proud of you that it hurts. I wish I had been there. I wish I had been the one to hug you.
I hope whoever hugged you knew how lucky they were.
Nobody hugged me that night. I went home and ate cereal on the floor. I told myself I was fine.
One letter was short.
Today it rained, and a woman on Princes Street had your laugh. I turned around so fast that I almost fell. It was not you. It is never you.
I miss you like a missing tooth. My tongue keeps going to the empty place.
I had to stop then. I put my head on the table and I cried the way I had not cried since my father’s funeral. Loud. Ugly. The kind of crying that hurts your ribs.
I had been so lonely for three years. I never knew why.
The whole time, there was a man across an ocean, missing me. All I had to do was pick up the phone.
The Last Letter
The last letter was dated four months ago.
It was thin. It had only one page.
Maya,
I am going to stop writing these.
Not because I stopped loving you. I don’t think I can stop. But I am tired of waiting for a phone call that will not come. I am trying to build a life here, and I cannot build it while I keep looking over my shoulder.
So this is goodbye. A real one, finally.
If Mom ever gives you these, I hope she doesn’t. I hope you never read this. I want you to stay happy and never know.
But if you do read it, please do not come after me. It would only make it harder. Please just live well.
You were the best thing that ever happened to me.
Leo
I read it three times.
Then I looked at the clock. It was almost six in the morning. My eyes were swollen. My tea was cold. The sun was coming up over the neighbor’s roof, gray and slow.
Please do not come after me.
I laughed. It came out broken.
Leo. Sweet, stupid Leo. He knew me for eleven years and he still did not know that telling me not to do something was the fastest way to make me do it.
The Flight to Edinburgh
I did not have his address. I had to call his mom.
She picked up on the first ring. She had not slept either.
“Did you read them?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Maya. I’m so sorry.”
“Mrs. Carter,” I said, “where does he live?”
She did not ask why. She just started to cry, softly, and then she gave me the address. She gave it slowly, one word at a time, like she wanted to be sure I got every one right.
I flew out of O’Hare that night. I had never been to Scotland. I packed badly. I had one bag, and I forgot my umbrella, and it rained the whole way from Edinburgh Airport.
I took the tram into the city. I got off near Waverley Station and stood in the wet wind with my phone in my hand, trying to read a map through tired eyes. Somewhere in that station was a bench where, in one of his letters, Leo had sat for an hour watching trains leave.
I walked the rest of the way. Past the Meadows, where the trees were dripping. Past students in big coats who did not seem to notice the rain at all.
The Blue Door
His street was in Marchmont. The building was old gray stone, with a shared stairwell and a dark blue door at the top of the steps. There was a small brass number on it, worn from many hands.
I stood on the step for a long time.
What if he had moved on? What if he had met someone? What if his letter was true, and he had made peace, and I was about to walk into a life he had worked hard to build?
What if I was too late?
My hands were cold. My hair was soaked. I was holding a piece of paper.
It was my letter. I had written it on the plane. It was one page. It was messy. It had my tears on it, so the ink had run.
I knocked.
I heard footsteps. I heard a lock turn.
The door opened, and there he was.
He was thinner. He had a beard now, which I hated already. He had a mug in one hand, and his glasses were pushed up in his hair.
He looked at me. He did not say anything. The mug slipped from his hand and hit the floor, and tea went everywhere, and neither of us moved.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said.
“I told you not to come.”
“I know. I read it.” My voice cracked. “Leo, I read all of them.”
His face changed. It crumpled, like a child’s.
“Mom,” he said. “She wasn’t supposed to…”
“She was right to.” I held out my letter with a shaking hand. “I wrote you one too. It’s not as good as yours. It’s a mess. It got wet.”
He did not take it. He just looked at me.
“Am I late?” I asked. “Please tell me I’m not too late.”
He laughed. It was a wet, broken sound, half a sob.
“Maya,” he said. “You are three years late.”
My heart dropped.
“But,” he said, and he stepped forward, and his hand came up to my face, shaking, gentle, like he was afraid I would disappear, “I would have waited ten more.”
I don’t remember who moved first.
I remember his arms. I remember how tight he held me, like I was the last solid thing in the world. I remember him whispering my name into my wet hair, again and again, as if he had been saving it for years and could finally say it out loud.
“I love you,” I said. It was the first time I had said it to anyone and meant it. “I think I always did. I was just too scared to know.”
“I know,” he said. “I know. It’s okay. You’re here.”
Behind him, in the small warm apartment, I could see a shelf by the window. On it was a row of photographs. Every one of them was me.
Me at fourteen. Me at his graduation. Me laughing, with cake on my nose.
He saw me looking. He went red.
“I was going to take those down,” he said.
“Don’t you dare,” I said.
He laughed again, and this time it was real. Then he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stepped aside.
“Come in,” he said. “You’re freezing. I’ll make tea.”
“You dropped your mug.”
“I have another one,” he said. “I have two. I have always had two.”
I stepped inside.
For the first time in three years, I was not lonely at all.
About the Places in This Story
The places in this story are real, so you can visit them.
Arthur’s Seat is the old volcano in Holyrood Park, where Leo says Maya’s name into the wind. The park is looked after by Historic Environment Scotland.
Marchmont, the Meadows, Princes Street, and Waverley Station are all part of everyday Edinburgh. You can plan a trip to the city on the VisitScotland website.
More Love Stories to Read Next
If this story got to you, these will too:
- The Letters She Never Sent is another love story built on letters, where the truth arrives after eight years.
- The Woman Who Came Back for One Night is a short love story with an ending you will not see coming.
- Bedtime stories for adults has three more free stories to read before you sleep.
- 5 Short Romantic Stories to Read Tonight has five more love stories you can finish in one sitting.
- The Night She Said “Marry Me” starts with a stranger in the street on a hot summer night.
