Elowen's POV
I made it outside eventually. The snow was still falling, softening the edges of the street, the lampposts throwing pale halos through the flurry. I found a bench and sat down because standing felt ambitious.
I checked my phone. No new messages.
My contacts had a section I never opened. Two names at the top, saved the way you save people you expect to always be able to call. I stared at them for a long time, my thumb hovering without touching.
If I opened those chats, the last messages would still be there.
That was the cruelest part of it. They were still there, unchanged, waiting in the way that only the messages of dead people wait, as if the conversation had simply paused and could be resumed at any time, if you were only brave enough.
My mother's last message to me
