A Story Inspired by "Letters to Elise" The Cure

Letters to Elise

The letter sat on the table, untouched for days, a pale envelope edged with creases from where his fingers had traced the outline. It had been weeks since he’d written it, but he couldn’t bring himself to send it. The words inside were a tangle of emotions, regrets, and apologies—too much and not enough, all at once.

It wasn’t that Andrew didn’t love her. He did, or at least he thought he did. The kind of love that felt heavy, the kind that weighed on him like a coat soaked through in the rain. But lately, that love had become too much. It had started to unravel, fraying at the edges with each passing day. And now, sitting at the edge of his bed, staring at the envelope he’d addressed to Elise, he wondered if it had ever been enough.

The apartment was quiet, other than the distant hum of traffic below. Elise hadn’t been back here in weeks. She’d stopped calling too. There had been no fight, no grand finale, no harsh words thrown in the heat of the moment. Just a slow drifting apart, like two ships caught in the same current but no longer headed toward the same shore.

Andrew picked up the envelope, turning it over in his hands, his thumb brushing against the faded ink of her name. He remembered the first time he had written to her, back when everything was new and exciting—when he still believed that love was enough to keep two people together. They used to exchange letters when he traveled for work, each note filled with laughter, promises, and inside jokes that only they understood. Now, this letter felt like a relic of something long lost.

He unfolded the paper inside, rereading the words he’d written in a moment of desperation.

Elise,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it—for the silence, for the distance, for the way I let us fall apart without even trying to stop it. I keep thinking about how we used to be—how easy it was to just be with you, how we never needed to fill the silence because being together was enough. And now, we can’t even sit in the same room without feeling like strangers.

I don’t know when that changed. Maybe it was gradual, maybe we were always on this path, and I just couldn’t see it. Or maybe I didn’t want to.

He paused, the memory of writing those words pressing down on him. It wasn’t like him to bare his soul like this, but with Elise, it had always been different. She made him feel like he could say anything, that even his darkest thoughts would be safe with her. But now, that safety felt like a distant dream.

He had loved her fiercely, at first. The kind of love that consumed you, made everything else fade into the background. She was everything he had ever wanted—smart, beautiful, fiercely independent. But somewhere along the way, the intensity had dulled, replaced by something quieter, something neither of them could put into words. And in that quiet, they had both drifted away.

Andrew stared out the window, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the room. He could still picture her here, moving through the apartment with that effortless grace she had, her laughter filling the space between them. Now, it felt hollow, the echo of something long gone.

He glanced back at the letter, the rest of his words staring up at him from the page.

I wish I could fix this. I wish I knew how to make things the way they were, but I don’t. And maybe that’s the hardest part. I’ve been holding on to the idea of us for so long that I don’t even know if it’s real anymore. Maybe it never was. Maybe we were always destined to end up here—two people who loved each other, but not enough to stay.

I’m sorry.

Andrew

He had meant every word when he wrote it. But now, as he sat there with the letter in his hands, he wasn’t sure if it would make a difference. Could an apology fix what had been broken, or had too much time passed? The silence between them had grown louder with each day, and no matter how many times he replayed their last conversation in his head, he couldn’t remember what had gone wrong. There was no single moment, no sharp break. Just an unraveling.

He stood up, pacing the room like he always did when the thoughts became too much. Elise had been everything to him, but now she was slipping through his fingers, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hold on to her. Maybe he didn’t deserve to.

The phone buzzed on the table, pulling him out of his thoughts. For a second, his heart skipped, hoping it was her. But it wasn’t. It hadn’t been her in weeks. He knew it wouldn’t be her. She was gone, whether she had said it out loud or not.

The letter felt heavy in his hand as he looked at the clock. He had planned to send it, but now? Now it felt like another gesture in a long line of failed attempts to save something already beyond repair. He sat back down, the envelope resting in his lap, and stared out the window.

The sun had nearly set, casting the world in shades of gray. And as the last bit of light disappeared over the horizon, Andrew realized that he wouldn’t send the letter. Not tonight, not ever. There was nothing left to say, and no words that could bring her back.

He folded the letter once more, tucking it back into the envelope before setting it on the table, alongside the others he had written over the past few weeks. Letters she would never read.

With a sigh, he leaned back, closing his eyes. The city buzzed outside, indifferent to his heartbreak. In the quiet, all he could hear was the sound of his own breath and the fading echo of her voice, a memory slipping further away with each passing moment.

And for the first time in a long time, Andrew accepted it—she was gone.