I found my own wedding invitation in somebody else’s recycling

Dear Delyara, I collect rubbish for the city. At five this morning, I lifted a bundle of paper from a recycling point and saw my name. Full name. Old address. It was a wedding invitation from my childhood friend Kenji, still sealed, yellowed at the corners. His wedding was eleven years ago. We had stopped speaking by then, and I had always believed he deliberately did not invite me because of an argument we had after his father died. Apparently, he did. He sent the invitation to the apartment I had moved out of six months earlier. Somehow it survived in somebody’s cupboard for more than a decade before reaching my truck. I stood in the street wearing orange gloves and opened it. Inside, he had written by hand, “I know things have been bad between us. I still want you there.” I had spent eleven years building a story in which he chose pride over our friendship. Now I know the story may have been built by postal forwarding and bad timing. I searched his name during my break. He lives in Osaka now. Two children. Same smile. I typed a message and did not send it. What do you write after eleven years? “Sorry, I just found your wedding invitation in the trash”? The ridiculous thing is that I collect thousands of things people have decided they no longer need. Today, the one piece of rubbish I could not throw into the truck was addressed to me.