Seven years. Seven long, agonizing years since the world tilted on its axis and stole her from me. She wasn’t just my best friend; she was my other half, the sister I chose, the keeper of every secret, every dream. Her laugh echoed in my quietest moments, her absence a constant, dull ache beneath my ribs. The accident was sudden, brutal. One moment she was there, vibrant and alive, the next, a gaping hole in my universe. I never truly recovered. My life became a quiet homage to her memory, a constant reminder of what I’d lost.
Then, last night, my phone buzzed. A notification flickered on the screen. It wasn’t an unknown number. It was her number. My heart stopped. Just… stopped. Cold. Pure, unadulterated terror seized me. My fingers froze, hovering over the screen. It was impossible. Her phone was destroyed in the wreckage. It had to be a cruel joke, a hacker, some sick prank. My mind raced, trying to find a rational explanation. No, she’s gone. She’s really gone. But the screen glowed, mocking me, pulling me in. A single word. Hey.
My breath hitched. A whimper escaped my throat. I stared at the message, re-reading that innocuous word a hundred times, as if its meaning would change, as if it would suddenly make sense. My hands were shaking so violently, I almost dropped the phone. This isn’t real. It can’t be real. I wanted to throw it across the room, smash it into a million pieces, just to make the impossible stop. But I couldn’t. I was trapped, staring at the digital ghost of my past.
Another text. My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst through my chest. “Remember that summer at the lake? The old canoe, and how we almost tipped it chasing that duck?” ONLY SHE KNEW THAT. Only we knew that. That memory was locked away, just ours. My breath caught, tears blurring my vision. This wasn’t a prank. This was something else entirely. A flicker of wild, insane hope ignited in my chest, immediately followed by a crushing wave of despair. My heart was in my throat, threatening to choke me. My thumb hovered, then furiously typed, “WHO IS THIS? STOP IT.”
More texts flooded in. Not a stream, but sporadic, carefully timed, each one a dagger twisting in an old wound. My childhood nickname, a secret hideout behind my grandmother’s house, a ridiculous phrase we invented to signal we needed to escape a boring family dinner. Details so specific, so intimate, only she and I had ever shared them. My world was spinning, collapsing. I was crying, not even realizing it, hot tears streaming down my face as I read words that were undeniably hers. AM I LOSING MY MIND? Is she here? Is she watching? The texts started to shift, subtly. They stopped being just about our past, and began to hint at something unresolved, a secret she couldn’t share. “I tried to tell you, so many times.” “It was so hard, keeping it from you.”
I was a wreck. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. My husband tried to comfort me, his hand on my shoulder, his voice gentle, but I recoiled. He wouldn’t understand. No one would. He watched me with concern, asking if I was okay, if I needed to talk. I just shook my head, my eyes glued to the phone, waiting, always waiting. The texts had stopped being about our shared history, and were now hinting at something dark, something about her last days. “I was so scared.” “He wouldn’t let me say anything.” A cold dread began to settle in my stomach, replacing the initial shock and grief. This wasn’t just a ghost reaching out. This was a secret screaming to be heard.
Then, late last night, after the house was silent and my husband was asleep, my phone buzzed one last time. A single, long message. It didn’t use our secret language, no nostalgic anecdotes. It was direct. Cold.
“I couldn’t live with it anymore. She was pregnant. With our child. And I couldn’t let you find out. She was going to tell you everything.”
My world imploded. Pregnant? Our child? My hand, already trembling, dropped the phone. It landed with a soft thud on the rug. I scrambled, heart hammering, eyes wide with a terror I’d never known, picking it up, scanning for the sender’s number. It was still her number. Her old, inactive number.
But then, before I could even process the words, a new message popped up on my screen. This time, from my husband’s number.
“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t let her ruin us. I couldn’t let you see me as a monster. I just… I loved you so much.”
The phone slipped from my numb fingers again, hitting the floor with a louder crack this time. My best friend wasn’t just gone, she was taken. And the man I married, the man who held me as I cried for her for seven years, the father of my children… he was her murderer. And our youngest child… he’s not mine. My own flesh and blood. Oh, GOD. NO. ALL CAPS. NO.
The silence in the house is deafening. The weight of seven years of lies, of a life built on a lie, crushes me. My husband’s gentle snores from the next room are a monstrous sound. I just stare at the two glowing screens on the floor, his number, then hers. Two ghosts, finally speaking.
