It was supposed to be an ordinary delivery.
Rachel had been scrolling through an online thrift store when she spotted a vintage leather jacket. The listing described it as “worn but timeless,” with a price too good to pass up. She clicked buy now, imagining herself slipping it on for the chilly evenings ahead.
When the package arrived, Rachel was thrilled. The jacket smelled faintly of cedar, its surface cracked with age but still stylish. She slid it on in front of her mirror, turning side to side, admiring how perfectly it fit. But then her hand brushed against something inside the pocket.
At first, she thought it was just leftover tissue paper. But her fingers closed around something harder — folded, creased. She pulled it out slowly, her stomach tightening as she realized it was a letter, yellowed and worn from time.
The envelope had no stamp, no address — just two words written in shaky handwriting: Forgive me.
Rachel’s hands trembled as she unfolded the paper inside. The message was short, rushed, and filled with desperation:
“I’m sorry for what I did. If anyone finds this, please know the truth is in the attic. Don’t let it be forgotten.”
Her breath caught. Truth? Forgotten? She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the jacket on her shoulders.
Rachel tried to brush it off as someone’s strange joke, but curiosity clawed at her. She contacted the seller, who claimed the jacket had come from an estate sale — the belongings of an old man who had passed away. “Everything was sold as-is,” the seller said flatly, as if unaware of the note’s existence.
But Rachel couldn’t let it go. She began researching the man’s name, digging through local archives. What she found sent another shiver through her: years earlier, his wife had mysteriously disappeared. Neighbors had whispered about arguments, about something hidden, but no evidence was ever found.
The attic mentioned in the note? Police had searched it once, long ago, and found nothing.
Rachel stared at the letter again, the words Forgive me echoing in her head. Maybe it was just the rambling of a guilty conscience. Or maybe — just maybe — the truth had been sitting above everyone’s heads all along, waiting for someone to look closer.
She folded the letter back carefully and slipped it into a plastic sleeve. The jacket hung untouched in her closet after that, a silent reminder of the secret it carried. And every time she passed it, Rachel couldn’t help but wonder: had she stumbled upon a confession that solved a mystery… or one that should have stayed buried?
