UNWRITTEN CONNECTIONS

Rain streaked down the windows, blurring the city lights into soft, golden smears. Ava Carter sat at her desk, her gaze fixed on a small wooden box in front of her. She hesitated before opening it, as if lifting the lid might release the ghosts she had carefully tucked away. Inside were a dozen letters, each one neatly folded and worn at the edges. Jason’s handwriting filled the pages, his words flowing with the kind of sincerity that had once made her believe in forever. Ava pulled out one letter at random, unfolding it with deliberate care. "Ava," it began, "You make me feel like I can do anything, like the world is full of possibilities I’ve never considered. I don’t know where we’ll end up, but I know I want to be beside you, wherever that is." Her throat tightened as she read the words. For a long time, she had believed Jason was her future. Their relationship had been the kind people envied—stable, warm, and full of small, thoughtful gestures. But underneath it all, cracks had been forming, barely visible until they became impossible to ignore. Jason had wanted a life of certainty: a house in the suburbs, regular dinner parties with friends, and quiet weekends spent planning their future. Ava had tried to want those things, too. But deep down, her heart craved something else—freedom, creativity, the thrill of building something new, even if it came with risk. The arguments had started slowly, almost imperceptibly. Jason would ask why she couldn’t put her work aside for one evening, and Ava would bristle, feeling unseen. Over time, those small disagreements grew into bigger ones, until their love felt more like a compromise than a shared dream. The end came quietly, in the very apartment Ava now sat in. She could still hear Jason’s voice, calm but resigned, as he said, “You’re amazing, Ava, but you’re always reaching for something just out of my grasp. And I don’t think I can keep up.” She had cried that night—not because she disagreed, but because she knew he was right. They were no longer building a future together; they were trying to hold onto pieces of a past that didn’t fit anymore. That was six months ago. Since then, Ava had buried herself in work, taking on project after project to fill the silence Jason had left behind. But no matter how many apps she designed or how many late nights she spent staring at her computer screen, something inside her still felt hollow. On restless nights, she found herself turning back to the letters. Not just Jason’s, but her own—letters she had written and never sent, pages filled with her hopes and fears, written when she couldn’t find the words to speak them aloud. It was a habit she’d picked up in childhood, one she hadn’t realized she’d missed. One night, as she flipped through an old notebook, an idea sparked. What if people could connect the way she and Jason once had—not through curated profiles or filtered photos, but through raw, unpolished words? Could the intimacy of handwritten letters survive in a world so focused on instant gratification? The thought consumed her. Over the next few weeks, Ava poured herself into designing an app that would do just that. She called it Unwritten—a place where people could share their thoughts anonymously, with nothing but their handwriting to bridge the gap. It was her way of rediscovering what she had lost, of finding meaning in the fragments of her past. Now, as the rain continued to fall outside, Ava placed Jason’s letter back in the box and closed the lid. There was no going back to what they had been, but maybe, just maybe, she could build something new from the pieces they had left behind.