Had I known

Later, she sat on the edge of her bed, phone in her hands, rereading his call log like it might rearrange itself into a different ending. Five missed calls. She finally opened his last text message, received at 1:58 a.m., buried under her unread notifications. I’m not calling to fight. I just need to hear your voice one last time. Please. Her chest caved in. She realized then that love doesn’t always end with shouting or doors slammed shut. Sometimes it ends quietly—while one person is tired, and the other is holding on with everything they have left. At the funeral, people spoke about Tunde’s kindness, his laughter, his dreams. Ada stood quietly, clutching her phone, knowing that the version of him who had needed her most had been alone. That night, she did one last thing. She saved his number under a new name: Answer Next Time. And every time her phone buzzed afterward—every call, every message—Ada remembered that some moments don’t come back. Love, she learned too late, is fragile. And sometimes, it only asks for an answer and not ignorance cause it can only come once and fate can never be changed