I Wrote Seven Years Of Letters Answered By AI Chapter 10

I Wrote Seven Years Of Letters Answered By AI Chapter 10

After deleting the email, I set my phone aside and returned to my book.

I read two full pages but couldn’t absorb a single word, so I closed the novel and walked to the kitchen to make myself a mug of hot cocoa.

Sweet, rich hot cocoa—my favorite treat.

Carter had only ever assumed I drank coffee nonstop. He never knew I loved cocoa topped with marshmallows in winter and ice cubes in summer.

I’d written that exact detail in my anniversary card from our third year together. He’d never read it, and the AI had never logged the memory either.

I carried the mug back to the couch, gazing out at the glittering city lights stretching across the horizon.

No one here knew who I was. No one knew I’d once owned a coffee shop, or that I’d wasted seven years loving a man who treated my deepest affection as disposable training data.

It was perfect this way.

My phone lit up again with a message from a new coworker.

[Iris, there’s a weekend farmers market tomorrow—wanna come? They’ve got handmade pottery booths where you can make your own mugs.]

Reading the text brought back the memory of our shattered five-year anniversary ceramic cups, broken by Summer’s clumsiness.

I thought about it for two seconds, then typed a single reply: [Sure.]

The market the next day was bustling with crowds, bright, warm sunlight bathing every stall.

I sat down at the pottery booth and carefully molded a plain white mug from clay.

No carved initials for anyone else.

I painted only a tiny iris blossom along the curved side.

My coworker leaned over to ask about the design.

“It’s an Iris,” I explained. “The flower my name is based on.”

She smiled, saying it looked lovely. I smiled back, genuinely happy for the first time in a long time.

On the walk home I passed a stationery shop and stepped inside to buy a pack of blank postcards.

Back at my apartment desk, I picked up a pen and slowly wrote on the front of the first card: Dear Iris, the weather is wonderful today, and my new mug turned out great. You deserve every single good thing life has to offer.

No address, no stamp needed.

This was the first letter I’d ever written solely for myself.

From now on, for every anniversary, every small, joyful moment worth keeping, I’d keep writing more of them.

I’d never mail them to another person again.

Every card would belong only to me.