That night, the sky didn't cry — but Rey felt like it was raining inside his chest.
He sat at a small wooden desk in his rented room, staring at a blank piece of paper. His hand held a pen, but his soul was caught in a storm of unspoken words.
He hadn't written a single word for over an hour.
Outside, the wind moved gently through the trees. The city was quiet. Too quiet for someone who had just discovered that he was a father.
Aurelina.
The name echoed in his mind like a bell that refused to stop ringing.
She wasn't just the brilliant girl in his writing class who made him smile quietly…
She was his daughter.
His blood.
The piece of his past that had never truly left.
With trembling fingers, Rey began to write.
---
"To Aurelina,
The girl I never got to meet on the day she was born."
"I'm sorry.
I write this not as your teacher, not as a writer… but as a man who has been standing too far away from you, quietly missing something he never had the chance to hold."
"I once loved your mother with everything I had. But I wasn't brave enough to fight for more than promises. I left… not knowing I had also left behind a heartbeat."
"You are that heartbeat.
The quiet proof that love, though incomplete, still found a way to live."
---
Tears fell on the paper.
Rey stopped. His shoulders trembled.
He had written books that made people cry.
But tonight, he was the one drowning in his own unwritten story.
He didn't know what hurt more — losing Aurel… or watching Aurelina grow up without ever knowing who her father really was.
The letter remained unfinished. Just like him.
Never whole. Never on time.
---
The next morning, Rey walked into class as usual. But something felt different.
Aurelina was sitting in the front row. Her face was pale, her eyes slightly swollen — like she had been crying.
She said nothing during class.
But after the others had left, she walked up to him slowly.
> "Mr. Rey…" she said, her voice soft. "If someone disappeared for years without saying goodbye… and then came back in silence… do you think they were a coward, or just… lost in the fight?"
The question cut through Rey like a knife through old wounds.
He didn't answer.
He didn't even look at her.
Aurelina gave him a sad, knowing smile… and walked away, leaving him alone in a room that suddenly felt colder than ever.
---
That night, Rey looked at the unfinished letter again.
He knew he might never have the courage to hand it to her himself.
But he also knew… saying nothing would only repeat the mistakes that had already broken too many hearts.
He folded the letter carefully, slipped it into a plain brown envelope, and wrote just two words on the front:
> "For You."
No name.
No sender.
But he hoped… one day, the letter would find its way.
---
> "I waited for you to grow, never knowing you were waiting for me to see you."
— Rey