Chapter 3: The Words She Didn’t Send
330 Words
Elara stared at the message until the screen dimmed.
She tapped it awake again.
The words were still there.
Unchanged.
Unapologetic.
I’ve been thinking about you.
Her thumb hovered over the keyboard, muscles tight, breath shallow. The familiar weight settled in her chest, the kind she thought she had learned to live without.
She typed a single word.
Why?
Then erased it.
She tried again.
It’s been a long time.
Delete.
Her fingers trembled as she locked the phone and set it down on the bed, as if distance alone could quiet the storm rising inside her. She paced the room, heart racing, mind arguing with itself.
Don’t respond.
Don’t open doors you worked so hard to close.
She had rebuilt her life on certainty. On routines. On quiet nights and unanswered questions. Replying meant risking all of it, reopening wounds that had never truly healed.
The phone buzzed again.
Her steps froze.
Another message appeared before she could stop herself from reading it.
I know this is sudden. I didn’t plan it. I just… couldn’t keep pretending you don’t exist.
Elara sank onto the edge of the bed.
Years of silence collapsed into that moment. Memories rushed back uninvited, laughter that once felt endless, promises whispered in the dark, the night everything shattered without warning.
She clenched her jaw.
You don’t get to do this, she thought. Not now. Not after everything.
Her fingers moved before she could stop them.
What do you want?
She stared at the words, heart pounding.
Then she erased them too.
The cursor blinked on the empty screen, patient and relentless.
Outside, the rain slowed to a drizzle, the city lights blurring beyond the window. Elara wrapped her arms around herself, torn between the woman she had become and the girl she used to be.
One reply could pull the past into the present.
One silence could keep her safe.
She turned the phone face down.
But sleep didn’t come.
And neither did peace.
- Writer
