Eli’s POV
Some nights feel heavier than others.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJNt88ZCvCS
Not because anything dramatic happens—61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuNwT15YuQJ
but because nothing does.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEoN6RJReT6
No message. No new playlist. No sign of her.
And silence, once comforting, starts to echo.
I sat at Table Nine again tonight, though it was hours past morning. The café was nearly empty. Just me, a few laptop zombies, and the hum of soft jazz they play after the rush dies down.
I hadn’t heard from Mara since the note.
Part of me feared it was too much.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjL8J39laZL
Another part feared it wasn’t enough.
I was mid-sentence—typing a line I’d probably delete—when she walked in.
Hood up. Shoulders tense. But her eyes found mine like they always did, even from across the room.
She didn’t order anything.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQpYHytnPsK
Didn’t sit across from me, either.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK5HYF5Dhf2
She sat next to me.
That was new.
Neither of us said anything at first.
Then, quietly:
“Do you ever feel like you’ve told your whole story… and no one listened?”
Her voice wasn’t bitter.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHNFocXiHqw
It was tired.
I closed my laptop and turned toward her. “Every day.”
She didn’t look surprised by my answer. Maybe she’d expected it.
“I used to talk to someone,” she said. “A lot. They knew everything. The bad days. The panic attacks. The nights I couldn’t sleep unless I heard their voice.”
She paused, then glanced at her hands.
“But they left. Quietly. No explanation. No fight. Just… silence.”
I didn’t speak. I didn’t have to.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOGprTIgXge
Sometimes listening is the only answer that matters.
“I think I stopped telling my story after that,” she said. “Even to myself.”
And then, she did something I wasn’t ready for—61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8GneTc5ZSP
She looked at me like I was a question she was finally brave enough to ask.
“What about you, Eli? Who did you lose?”
I smiled—tight and crooked. “I haven’t lost them yet. But I’m scared I will. Because I don’t let people stay long enough to leave.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward this time. It was honest. Shared. Like two shadows deciding whether to step into the light.
She reached into her coat pocket and handed me a folded slip of paper.
A song title.61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwWgNCsJiQg
Just one.
“Don’t ask. Just listen.”
So I did.
ns216.73.216.82da2
