Mara’s POV
I saw the note before I saw the morning.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbIGUUIMevF
Folded, no envelope.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnoWh8XBUb0
His handwriting. Of course.
He knew where I lived.
He’d never used that information before. Never crossed the boundary of the quiet world we built. But something had changed. I could feel it in the way the note trembled slightly in my hands.
I didn’t read it right away.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3p8p47d9vH
I needed to be ready.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEwqnos38zM
And I wasn’t. Not yet.
The truth? I’d been unraveling.
Some part of me had started to believe that this—whatever this was between Eli and me—was real. And that was the scariest thing of all.
I wasn’t good at holding on to things.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHnKa20rG9F
Especially not people.
So I disappeared. I needed to. I needed to know if he’d notice.
And he had.
The flash drive was clipped to the bottom of the paper. I plugged it in later that night, expecting our song.
But it was his voice.
Not the song.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCoh9n5Zktf
Just… Eli. Speaking.
“Hey. I’m not good at this.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZVt5dAKxai
I thought maybe hearing me say this would matter more than just reading it.”A pause.
“I miss you. Not in the cliché way. I mean—I miss the you-ness of you.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3atYlrHtt4
The way you look at things sideways like the world’s some inside joke you haven’t decided to laugh at yet.”Another pause. Longer this time.
“If you’re not okay, you don’t have to talk. Just send a sign. Any sign.”
I cried.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtTYaxsNMkB
Harder than I expected.
And then I recorded something. Shaky. Unplanned. No script.
Eli’s POV
The message came at 2:08 a.m.
Just a voice note.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡej8hv1cQb6
No context.
I stared at it for twenty minutes before hitting play.
“I didn’t mean to disappear,” she said.
“I just… I panicked. Not because you did something wrong. But because for once, something felt right and I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust myself not to ruin it.”
Her voice was raw. Tired. She sniffed.
“I wanted to protect the space between us. And maybe I hurt it instead.”
Then, softer:
“I’m still here. I just don’t know how to be here. Not yet.”
Silence.
Then:
“But if you wait… I think I’d like to try.”
I played it three times.
Not because I didn’t understand it.45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwdCYpnA5Nc
But because I did.
And it scared me too.
But love doesn’t always show up with certainty.
Sometimes, it arrives like static on the line—45Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM67UC9QzfO
unclear, unfiltered, but still there.
