---
The message came at 2:17 a.m.
The kind of hour when cities hold their breath. When guilt walks the halls. When ghosts don't haunt to scare — but to be remembered.
David didn't hear the buzz at first. The rain had swallowed the night, steady and whispering, like grief that knew how to wait. It dripped from the eaves and tapped against the lone bulb above his window — not wild, not furious, just relentless.
He lay on the floor of a rented room in Lahore. Bare mattress. Bare bulb. Bare heart.
He hadn't spoken to anyone in six weeks.
Not even Mavia.
Especially not Mavia.
When the message buzzed again, something inside him blinked awake. His hand fumbled for the phone.
One new text.
> "He said, 'I will die.' And then he did."
---
He sat up.
Heart stilled.
Fingers numb.
He blinked at the screen.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
> From: Meher
Mavia's sister.
His chest tightened like the world had leaned in too close.
He hadn't seen that name since—
No.
---
The last time they spoke, he and Mavia had fought.
Not with fists. Just words sharpened by exhaustion.
David had said something bitter. Something cowardly. Something he now wished he could pull from the air and bury.
> "Maybe we're all just wasting time until we disappear."
Mavia had gone quiet. Looked at him with eyes like still water — deep, unmoving, unreadable.
And David had left the next morning.
No goodbyes. No explanation.
He didn't block anyone. He didn't need to.
He just powered down.
Changed cities.
Erased himself like a page torn from a book.
---
The rain hadn't stopped. Lahore had been soaked for days, as if the city itself mourned something it couldn't name.
David stared at his phone until dawn painted the walls gray.
He didn't sleep.
Didn't cry.
Didn't breathe properly until the clock read 8:03 a.m., and his thumb finally tapped the screen.
It rang once.
Twice.
Then:
"David?"
Her voice was dry. Brittle. Like it had been folded too many times.
"It's me," he said.
A silence bloomed — not empty, but full. Full of everything they hadn't said.
"I didn't know if you'd call," she said.
"I almost didn't."
"I figured," she murmured. "But I hoped."
There was a pause.
And then:
"Mavia's gone."
The words landed like wet ash.
"He took pills last night. He didn't survive."
---
David didn't respond.
He couldn't.
The room didn't spin. It froze.
Somewhere beyond the window, a bird sang — too early, too bright.
Wrong.
"I'm sorry," Meher added. "I shouldn't have messaged like that. I just... I didn't know what else to do. He left something."
"A note?" David whispered.
"One sentence," she said.
> "'Tell David he was right.' That's all."
---
He caught the next bus out of Lahore before noon.
No bag. No toothbrush. No second thoughts.
Just his phone.
And a thousand memories clawing their way back.
---
The cemetery was soaked.
Rain fell in threads, stitching the sky to the earth.
David stood under a tree at the edge of the crowd. No umbrella. Just the hood of his borrowed coat.
The coffin looked too small.
Funerals are always quieter when it rains — like God is listening more closely.
There were no loud sobs. No performative wails. Just silence, broken by sniffles and the steady rustle of wet leaves.
He didn't move closer.
He couldn't.
His feet stayed rooted, as if guilt had turned to stone.
He watched as they lowered Mavia into the ground.
And still, he didn't cry.
Tears felt dishonest.
Because he'd left.
Because he hadn't said sorry.
Because the silence between them had grown so wide it had swallowed one of them whole.
---
Everyone left — umbrellas closing like wings. Black shoes sinking in mud. Car doors slamming shut.
Only Meher remained.
She stood near the grave, rain sliding off her hair, shoulders squared like she'd forgotten how to collapse.
Then she turned. Walked toward him.
For a moment, David didn't breathe.
Her eyes met his — dark, tired, filled with something he couldn't name.
"You came," she said.
David swallowed. "I didn't know if I should."
"He waited for you," she said quietly. "Right up to the last day. He kept his phone on his chest while he slept. Said maybe you'd call."
David's knees buckled slightly.
She reached into her coat and pulled out an envelope — pale blue, edges curled.
"He wrote this. For you."
---
That night, David sat in a stranger's guest room.
No lights. Just the flicker of a candle near the window. The rain hadn't stopped. It just whispered harder.
He held the letter like it might vanish if he blinked.
He opened it.
The handwriting was hurried, like he'd written it between heartbeats.
> David,
If you're reading this, I'm already gone. I'm sorry. I never blamed you. I swear.
You left because you had to. I understand that now. I kept checking for your name, not because I was angry — but because I hoped.
We weren't wasting time. We were surviving.
I didn't make it. But you still can.
Please — don't vanish like I did. Try. For both of us.
— M
---
David didn't sleep that night.
He didn't eat.
He didn't move, except to light a second candle when the first melted to nothing.
At some point, he realized his hands were trembling.
The phone still lay beside him, open to the same message.
> "He said, 'I will die.' And then he did."
The same sentence.
Over and over.
Like a punishment.
Like a prayer.
---
By dawn, something inside him cracked — not loudly, but with quiet, devastating finality.
He pressed the letter to his chest, curled into himself, and whispered into the rain:
"I'm so sorry."
---
Somewhere in the silence, something changed.
Not forgiveness. Not peace.
Just a flicker. A beginning.
Grief is strange that way.
It doesn't ask for permission.
It just arrives — like rain. Quiet, steady, patient.
And sometimes, it carries the first seed of healing.