Letters To My Future Husband

A Click In The Dark

By the time we stumbled into my apartment, arms full of grocery bags and takeout containers, I was running on fumes. The kind of exhaustion that wasn’t just physical but buried bone-deep, like the day had drained me from the inside out.

“Shoes off,” Sienna commanded, kicking hers into a corner with zero remorse before plopping onto my couch like she owned the place. “Tonight is sacred. No bosses. No exes. Just us, grease, sugar, and Ryan Gosling’s face.”

I laughed weakly, tugging off my heels and lining them neatly by the door, because even when my life was chaos, my shoes needed order. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously amazing? Yes. Thank you for noticing.” She ripped open a pizza box, grabbed a slice dripping with cheese, and waved it like a sword. “Now, eat. Cry. Vent. Whatever you need. I’m here for it.”

I sank onto the couch beside her, letting the scent of melted cheese soothe me as much as her presence did. “You know… I don’t deserve you.”

“True,” she said around a mouthful of pizza. “But you have me anyway. So deal with it.”

We dug in like women starved, pizza boxes and candy bags strewn across the coffee table like offerings to the gods of comfort food. Two glasses of wine in, Sienna leaned back with a sigh. “Tell me something, Isla. Do you think Alaric Davenport has ever smiled? Like, actually smiled? Not that smirk-thing he does when he’s about to eviscerate someone, but an actual, honest-to-God smile?”

I snorted into my glass. “If he did, I think his face would c***k. Or the stock market would collapse.”

“Exactly.” She waved her pizza slice for emphasis. “That man was sculpted in a lab to ruin lives and wrinkle blouses with stress sweat. He probably sleeps in a coffin.”

I chuckled. “Filled with spreadsheets.”

“And the tears of interns.”

That made me laugh harder than I’d expected, a sound that felt rusty but good. “You’re terrible.”

“Terribly accurate,” she corrected, grinning. Then her voice softened. “Seriously though, you’re stronger than he thinks. Than you think. Don’t let that marble statue in a suit convince you otherwise.”

We settled back into our wine and pizza, letting a rom-com play in the background. Sienna kept pausing it to heckle the heroine, “Girl, don’t trust him, his jawline is too sharp!” until I laughed so hard my stomach ached.

For a while, the world felt softer.

But when the laughter finally died down and the credits rolled, silence pressed in, the kind that makes you aware of every unsaid word.

“You’ve been carrying a lot, Isla.” Sienna’s voice was gentler now, eyes sharp but warm. “Not just today. Not just him. For years. You shove it down, pretend you’re fine, but I know you. You’re not fine.”

I swallowed, fingers tightening around my glass. She wasn’t wrong. But admitting it out loud felt too raw, too naked.

Her gaze slid toward my desk, where my journal sat closed, the leather cover worn and familiar. “That’s where it all goes, isn’t it?”

My chest tightened. “Sienna...”

Before I could stop her, she padded across the room, snagged the journal, and flipped it open.

“Don’t...” I lunged, but she darted out of reach, already scanning a page.

Her eyes flicked over the words, and I saw her expression change. The teasing grin melted, replaced by something achingly tender. She sank onto the arm of the couch, clearing her throat before reading aloud.

“Dear Future Husband,” she began, her voice wavering. “Please don’t choose someone else while I’m still waiting for you. Please don’t leave me wondering what’s so unlovable about me that everyone else seems to see it. Don’t tell me I’m too much one day and not enough the next. Just… be the one who stays. Be the one who looks at me like I’m already enough.”

Her voice cracked. She pressed the page to her chest, eyes glistening. “Isla… these aren’t just words. This is… God, this is hope. It’s heartbreak and hope stitched together.”

Heat flared in my cheeks, panic rushing like wildfire through my veins. I lunged forward and snatched the journal out of her hands, hugging it tight to my chest as if I could fuse it to my ribcage. My voice came out sharper than I intended, jagged and trembling.

“It’s private.”

“I know,” she said, lifting her palms in surrender, but her eyes still burned with that stubborn spark I knew too well. “But...”

“No.” The word cracked like glass. I shook my head so hard my vision blurred. “Don’t you get it? They’re messy. Pathetic. No one wants to read the ramblings of a desperate woman.”

Sienna’s head snapped up, curls bouncing as her jaw clenched. “Pathetic? Isla Rowan, are you even hearing yourself?” Her voice rose, her fire filling my small apartment. “These pages are the opposite of pathetic. They’re honest. They’re raw. They’re you. And you...” her voice caught now, wobbling under the weight of it, “you keep treating yourself like you’re something shameful.”

Her words pierced me, but I clutched the journal tighter, my nails digging crescent moons into the leather. “People will laugh,” I whispered, shame coating the words. “Or pity me. Or worse, they’ll scroll past, shrug, and not care at all. Do you know what that feels like, Sienna? To bleed onto a page and have the world look away? I can’t…” My voice cracked. “I can’t survive being invisible again.”

Something in her softened, but she didn’t back down. Her eyes glistened, her jaw still set in defiance. “Invisible? Isla, you are the most visible person I know. You’re light, and you don’t even see it. You hide under excuses and jobs that drain you, and you bury yourself in men who can’t carry your heart. But you’re not invisible. You just… you keep hiding from yourself.”

I shook my head violently, tears spilling hot and angry. “You don’t get it. If people read this, they’ll see how broken I am.”

“Good,” she shot back, gripping my hand so tightly I felt her pulse. “Let them see. People are dying to see something real, Isla. Not polished lies. Not fake smiles. This...” she jabbed a finger toward the journal, “this is real. This is what it means to be human. You think you’re pathetic? You’re brave.”

Tears pricked hot behind my eyes, blurring her into something fragile and fierce all at once. “It’s not beautiful,” I croaked. “It’s desperate.”

She shook her head, her curls swaying, her voice trembling with conviction. “Sometimes desperation is beautiful. Because it means you still want more. It means you haven’t given up yet. That, Isla Rowan, is the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

The silence that followed was brutal, heavy, pressing down on my chest. I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to. But the fear was louder. The memory of being left, of being overlooked, of being unseen, it roared inside me.

Finally, I whispered, raw and shaking, “Please. Don’t ever show this to anyone. Promise me.”

Her jaw tightened. I saw the war in her eyes...wanting to argue, to fight me...but something in my face must have stopped her. She opened her mouth, then closed it. And finally, she gave a single sharp nod. “Fine. I promise.”

The words should have soothed me. Instead, they rattled, thin and brittle, as though they might shatter at the slightest touch.

Later, when I dragged myself into the shower, steam curling around me and water pounding against my skin, I let my shoulders sag for the first time that day. For a moment, I let myself believe I was safe.

But in the living room, Sienna sat frozen on the couch, the journal open again on her lap. My words stared back at her in black ink and heartbreak, refusing to be silenced. Her lips trembled as she pressed them together, her whole body taut with guilt and conviction.

She whispered to herself, almost pleading with the silence, “Just one. Just one letter. No names. No face. But someone out there… someone needs this. Maybe even more than she knows.”

Her phone glowed in her hand, the screen casting blue light across her conflicted expression.

She hovered for one last breath, one last chance to stop herself.

Then the shutter clicked.

And with it, the most private piece of me left my hands forever.