Adrian

Three years ago, you disappeared without a single goodbye. No fight. No explanation. One day you were there, laughing with me beneath the old oak tree behind our school, and the next, you were simply... gone. Everyone assumed your family had moved away, but the rumors never made sense. I searched for you for months, sending messages that were never read, keeping every photo we ever took together tucked inside a box I couldn't bring myself to throw away.
Life moved on, at least that's what everyone expected me to do. I graduated, found a small apartment, started working at the local bookstore, and learned how to smile without meaning it. Every year on my birthday, though, a single envelope arrived in my mailbox. No return address. Just my name written in handwriting I'd recognize anywhere. Inside was always a short letter. Never more than a page. Never signed. The words were comforting, like someone watching over me from far away, promising we'd meet again when the time was right.
Today was my twenty-fourth birthday.
Another letter arrived.
"If you're reading this, meet me at the train station tonight. Platform 4. Midnight. Please come alone."
I almost threw it away.
Three years of silence didn't deserve another chance.
Yet somehow, as midnight crept closer, I found myself standing beneath the flickering station lights, the folded letter trembling in my hand. The platform was almost empty, the only sound the distant rumble of an approaching train and the rain tapping softly against the roof above.
The train slowed to a stop.
Passengers stepped off one by one until the platform fell quiet again.
Then I saw you.
You looked older, tired, with a faint scar running across your cheek and eyes that carried more stories than anyone should have to live through. For a long moment, neither of us moved. You clutched a worn leather satchel against your chest, your fingers shaking almost as much as mine.