Letter 1
The day I met you was not extraordinary. There were no cinematic beams of sunlight, no slow-motion moments, no sudden music playing in the background of my mind. It was just an ordinary Tuesday. I remember the sky was a pale shade of blue, and I was carrying a book I didn’t plan to read. You were sitting on the steps outside the library, tying your shoelaces, hair slightly messy as if you had been fighting the wind.
You looked up for a second and our eyes met briefly. You nodded politely; I nodded back. There was no story yet. Only two strangers sharing the same moment in time before continuing on with their separate lives.
But I remember that moment more than I remember entire years of my life.
Funny, isn’t it?
The smallest things stay.
Letter 2
I didn’t speak to you for weeks after that. I merely noticed you. The way some people notice birds in the morning or the smell of coffee on someone’s clothing. You were simply something my eyes kept returning to, like a familiar shape in a crowded room.
You always carried a notebook. A worn one, covered with doodles and faint fingerprints of old handling. I wondered if it held poems, or lists, or pieces of your mind that you were afraid to say out loud. I wanted to ask. But at that time, you were still a stranger who felt strangely significant. I didn’t know how to bridge the distance.
I told myself it didn’t matter.
But it did.
Even then, it did.
Letter 3
The first conversation we had lasted only two minutes and thirty seconds. I know because I timed it in my memory so many times, replaying the cadence of your voice and the way your hands moved when you spoke.
You asked if the seat next to me was taken. It wasn’t. I said, “Go ahead.”
You sat. You tapped your pen against your notebook. You were not nervous, but thoughtful, the way someone might be when they are deciding whether to speak.
Then you looked at me with eyes that did not seem to require introductions and asked, “What do you think most people pretend not to feel?”
And I realized I had spent so long waiting for someone to ask a question like that.
I told you, “Loneliness.”
You nodded, and in that nod, I felt understood.
Not known. But understood.
There is a difference.
Letter 4
We started meeting without planning to. Or at least that is how we told ourselves the story. Same café. Same hour. Same table by the window. But coincidence only explains so much.
I think we were both waiting for something. Not from life. From each other.
Some people walk into your days like they were always meant to be there. You were like that. Not a disruption, not a shock. More like a piece that fit somewhere I did not know was missing.
We talked about books we didn’t finish, movies we didn’t care for, and memories that still ached for reasons we could not fully understand.
One afternoon, you told me you sometimes write anonymously online. I asked where. You mentioned a small community board where people posted their thoughts—gudang4d. A strange name, I thought. But you said it gently, as if it were home.
Later, I searched for it. I found a few pieces that sounded like you. I think I recognized your silence between the words.
I never told you I read them.
Some things are too tender to expose.
Letter 5
There was a moment—only one—when I almost said something that would have changed everything.
You were laughing that day. Really laughing. The kind where you forget to be careful with yourself. Your eyes were bright, your shoulders unburdened, your voice unguarded.
And I thought: I could love you.
Not in the way one loves an idea, or a possibility, or a memory. But in the way one loves something true, fragile, and breathing. Something with weight and warmth.
But then the laughter faded. You looked out the window. Something flickered behind your eyes, something familiar enough for me to recognize.
The past had returned. The one you never named, the one I did not ask about.
Your silence changed shape that day.
And I kept my words in my mouth.
I still don’t know if that was kindness or cowardice.
Letter 6
You disappeared slowly. Not all at once. Not like a door slamming shut. More like the gradual fade of evening into night. The messages became shorter. The pauses between replies became longer. The meetings became accidental again.
And I understood.
I have known loss before. It rarely announces itself.
I did not chase you. I want you to know that was not indifference. I simply knew that some departures must be allowed. Trying to hold onto someone already halfway gone is like gripping water. The harder you try, the less you have.
I hope you understand that it was love too—letting go, instead of tightening my grip.
Letter 7
It has been months now.
The café feels different, though it has not changed. The same window, the same music, the same barista with tired eyes. Yet the space feels hollow in a way I cannot explain.
I still sit at our table. Not every day. Just enough to let the memory breathe without suffocating me.
There are days I feel peaceful about it all. Days where I simply smile at what we were, short as it was. But there are also days where the loneliness settles heavily in my bones.
You once asked me what people pretend not to feel.
I think I have a new answer.
Longing.
Not for what was. But for what might have been.
Letter 8
You will probably never read these letters.
I am not writing them to reach you.
I am writing them to release you.
There is a difference, and I am learning to live inside it.
If someday we find ourselves on the same street, in the same café, at the same time again, I hope we will recognize each other. Not with longing, not with regret.
Baca Juga: ketika waktu tak lagi bicara sebuah, cinta yang tak pernah padam kisah, langit yang tak pernah sama kisah cinta
But with quiet gratitude.
Because for a brief span of time, in a world overwhelming and indifferent, we were two people who found a place to rest—if only for a little while.
And that is not small.
Not at all.