If I Could Rewrite Love, Would It Still Hurt This Way? | A Jhocey AU

Dear Jules,

I don’t know how they ended up in my hands.

A stack of letters, your handwriting unmistakable, waiting for me like they had always been meant to find their way here.

I hesitated. Thought about leaving them where I found them. Maybe I should have.

But my fingers closed around the paper before I could think better of it.

And now, I can’t seem to stop reading.

With memories I thought I’d buried,
Sam

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to find them.

Dear Jules,

You sound different. Or maybe I just never really heard you before.

I keep reading your words, over and over, like I’m trying to find the version of you I remember. But the girl in these letters—the one who loved so deeply, who held on even when she saw me slipping away—she isn’t just the Jules I knew.

She’s someone stronger. Someone who saw the cracks before I even knew they were there.

You knew. Long before I did.

And I don’t know why that makes my chest ache the way it does.

With the weight of things unsaid,
Sam

I don’t know why that makes my chest ache the way it does.

Dear Jules,

You never blamed me.

Not in your letters. Not in the way I expected.

I thought I’d find anger buried in your words—resentment, maybe even hate. But instead, I find something softer. Something worse.

You forgave me before I ever asked for it. Maybe even before I deserved it.

I thought reading these would bring closure. That it would feel like the end of something.

But it doesn’t.

It just feels like remembering.

With more regret than I know what to do with,
Sam

I think it just made me remember differently.

Dear Jules,

You let go so beautifully.

I don’t know how you did it.

You lost me, but you found yourself. And maybe that was always the difference between us.

I left thinking I needed to figure out who I was, but all I did was run. You stayed, and somehow, you grew into someone whole.

I don’t think I ever stopped believing we would find our way back to each other.

But now I wonder if I was the only one still looking.

With the realization I might’ve been wrong,
Sam

Just not in the way I wanted her to.

Dear Jules,

I wonder if you ever think about me.

Not in the way we were, but in the way we ended.

Do you ever look back and wonder what could have been different? Or did you make peace with it in a way I never could?

Sometimes I think there are two versions of us—the one that fell apart and the one that might’ve made it.

I think I was always hoping for the latter.

With the ghost of what-ifs,
Sam

I think I was always hoping for the latter.

Dear Jules,

I don’t know what I expected, rereading these. Maybe I thought it would feel like closure. Maybe I wanted it to.

But all it does is remind me of everything I tried to forget.

You made peace with the ending. You moved on.

And me?

I think I’m still learning how.

With a heart that still doesn’t know how to let go,
Sam

And I don’t know why that’s harder to swallow than if she hadn’t.

Dear Jules,

I used to think that if I ever read these, I’d feel like I got a piece of you back.

But that’s not what happened.

I didn’t find you in these letters. I found the girl you used to be. The girl who loved me so deeply, so honestly, that she tried to make sense of everything, even when I couldn’t.

But she isn’t here anymore.

She grew into someone new, someone whole. And maybe… maybe that’s okay.

Maybe I needed to know that I didn’t.

With something like acceptance,
Sam

Maybe I needed to know that I didn’t.

Dear Jules,

This is the last one.

I don’t know what to do with them now. I don’t think I’ll throw them away, but I don’t think I’ll keep them either—not like before.

Maybe I’ll tuck them away one last time. Maybe I’ll leave them behind.

But I think I understand now.

I held onto these letters like they were proof of something—proof that we were real, that what we had mattered. But I don’t need them to know that anymore.

We were real. We mattered.

And I think it’s time I stop carrying something you already let go of.

With a goodbye I should have said sooner,
Sam

Because I think it’s time I stop carrying something she already let go of.