Chapter 115

• It started with a drawer I hadn’t opened in months. One of the narrow ones in the back corner of my desk, the kind that collects scraps you promise to deal with later but never do. I had been looking for a spare needle, something small and practical, when my fingers brushed against the edge of a thick envelope. Not new. The paper was soft from time, creased at the corners. I knew what it was before I pulled it out.
• The handwriting on the front was mine.
• There were more inside the drawer. Seven in total. All addressed to no one, folded carefully, stored without any intention of ever being sent. Letters written during the quiet days, back when I still signed my name Noelle. When I lived like a ghost inside someone else’s skin.