The message glared at me from the screen. For a long minute, I couldn’t move. My heart hammered so violently it felt like it might split my ribs. Every instinct told me to turn the phone off, to pretend I’d never seen it. But curiosity — and something deeper, something like hope pushed me on. I drifted toward the door, each step weighted, my hand trembling as I reached for the knob. The silence pressed in, suffocating, until the night air rushed over me, cool and sharp.
At first, nothing. An empty street. A still porch. Then I saw it — a small, weathered box resting on the mat, edges frayed as if dug up from the earth. My fingers shook as I lifted it. Heavy. Wrong. Inside lay a phone — her phone — wrapped in the faded thread of the friendship bracelet we’d made at camp. The same bracelet I thought had been lost forever.
It shouldn’t have worked, not after seven years. Not after the crash. But the screen blinked awake. My pale reflection hovered for an instant before a single notification slid across the glass: “I never left you. You just stopped listening.” My knees buckled, and I collapsed into a chair, tears blurring the words. Memories crashed over me — her laugh, her off-key singing, the last voicemail I’d deleted because it hurt too much to hear.
For years, guilt had gnawed at me. I missed her final call the night she died, and I’d convinced myself that if I had answered, everything might have been different. That I could have saved her. But now, staring at her message, I finally understood. She didn’t blame me. She wanted me to forgive myself. I pressed the phone to my chest and, for the first time in seven years, the weight eased. The nightmares loosened their grip. That night, I slept in peace. Because the people we lose aren’t always gone. Sometimes, love lingers. It waits. It whispers. And if you’re willing to listen— it answers.