The notes desk

You think nobody noticed. I did. Tuesday, a little after noon, you looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. I'm not here to fix it. Just to say: I saw you, and if you ever want to hand it over, I can hold it for a while.

First note is free. Tell me who you're bad at reaching, and one true thing about them: [email protected]

You're not who I thought I'd write to last.

I saved this one for someone unreachable. Someone gone, some beautiful tragedy. But the one I've been failing to reach is three feet away, typing with one thumb.

Everything works, so nothing gets said. We do mornings, we split bills, we say “we should do this more” and then we don't. It never feels like losing you. It feels like Tuesday.

Then one day it's “remember when.” No warning. An empty chair and a hundred unsent ordinary sentences.

So here's mine, sent early: you're my favorite part of most of my days. You make the ordinary stuff worth narrating. I noticed, and I'm saying it while it lands soft.

That's the whole note. No ask, no occasion. Just: you're still in the room, and I refuse to wait for the distance.

Five of five. That's the set.

First note is free. Tell me who you're bad at reaching, and one true thing about them: [email protected]

I've drafted this four times this month. Sending it before I find a fifth reason not to.

We're not in a fight. That's what makes it hard. Nothing broke, nothing to point at. Life got loud in both directions, we both stopped mid-reply, and now there's a polite little distance where the fast, dumb, easy us used to live.

Things I still do because of you: I check the tea shelf where yours used to be, like you might turn up this weekend. I say your joke at parties, under my breath, and strangers watch me grin at nothing. I save my good news until you can hear it first. The pile is embarrassing now.

So: I miss you. The actual you, not the version I explain to people. One reply, whenever. No debts. I've kept your seat the whole time and it never got cold.

First note is free this week. Tell me who you're bad at reaching, one true thing about them: [email protected]

It's been years and I still reach for your name first.

When something good happens my hands move before my head does, and then they stop, because there's nowhere to put it now.

I'm not sad today. That's the strange part. The missing has been here so long it's load-bearing. I've built rooms out of it. I keep your side of things: small rituals, your name said like a full sentence. Someone asked about you last week. I told the true version; it came out warm.

Wherever you are: I hope it's soft there. I hope you're somebody's favorite thing. You were mine, once, out loud; that doesn't stop being true just because I can't say it to you anymore.

No ask. I just refuse to let you get smaller than you were.

I miss you in embarrassingly small ways. There's a cup in my cabinet that was yours for two weeks, and I still don't drink from it. That's the whole note. No question, nothing to fix. The cup stays where it is. So do I.