The whispers from the party clung to Adriella like cobwebs. Long after she and Adaora had returned home, they tangled around her thoughts, replaying in cruel loops.
"She still looks so thin…"
"Such a pity. They were so in love."
"Do you think she'll ever move on?"
Her relatives had spoken softly, perhaps thinking they were out of earshot. But Adriella had heard. And now, as the night pressed close around her, their voices echoed louder than any laughter from earlier in the evening.
She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the moonlight spilling across the floor. Sleep felt impossible. The stillness of the house mocked her. Somewhere, far away, people were falling asleep in each other's arms, safe and whole. She felt like the only person alive in a world of shadows.
Her phone sat on the nightstand, black and silent. For weeks she had avoided it, afraid of the thread that lay buried inside. But tonight, something in her snapped. She needed him. Needed his words. Needed proof that once upon a time, she hadn't felt like this hollow shell.
Her hands shook as she unlocked the device. Her chest tightened when she typed his name.
Tobi.
The conversation opened, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. His face no longer appeared with the messages — she had deleted his photo, unable to bear seeing it light up her screen. But the words remained. Thousands of them. Memories etched in digital ink.
She scrolled, and it was like stepping back into another life.
"Good morning, sunshine. Did you dream of me? 😏"
"Stop overthinking, ella. I love you exactly as you are, messy thoughts and all."
"One day, we'll laugh about this fight. I promise. We're stronger than a few harsh words."
"You're my safest place. My anchor. My home."
Her throat tightened. She could almost hear his voice again — warm, teasing, sometimes exasperated, always steady.
She scrolled faster, desperate to drink him in. Her lips quivered at the banter. She let out a choked laugh at his bad jokes, then dissolved into tears at the love notes he had left scattered in between.
And then she reached the end.
"I'll be home soon. Don't wait up if you're tired."
"I love you. Always."
His last words. Hours before he never came home.
The phone slipped from her trembling hand, bouncing onto the sheets. The sight of those words — ordinary, tender, final — ripped her open all over again.
A wail tore from her throat, raw and unrestrained. She curled into herself, hugging her knees to her chest as sobs wracked her body. Her cries filled the silence, jagged and unrelenting. She pressed her face into the pillow, screaming his name until her voice broke.
"Tobi! Tobi, please… come back. Just once. Just once."
Her chest heaved, her body trembling. The grief came like a storm, violent and merciless, battering her from the inside. She clutched the pillow until her knuckles whitened, gasping between sobs.
Memories flooded her — the way he used to brush her hair out of her face when she was stressed. The way he called her "ella Sunshine," even on her darkest days. The way his laughter had been a melody she thought she would hear forever.
Now there was only silence.
She reached for the phone again, clutching it like a lifeline. Her tears soaked the screen as she whispered into the void: "I love you too. Always. Do you hear me? Always."
Her sobs eventually softened into hiccups, her energy spent. She lay back, phone clutched against her chest, staring at the ceiling through blurred eyes. Every muscle ached, her throat raw from crying. She felt hollowed out, as if her grief had scraped her soul raw.
That was when it happened.
A soft buzz startled her. The phone lit up in her hand. For a heartbeat, her breath caught. Her heart leapt with an impossible thought: What if—?
Her thumb swiped across the glowing screen. It wasn't Tobi, of course. It couldn't be.
It was an old friend she hadn't spoken to in months.
"Hi ella… I don't know why, but you crossed my mind tonight. Just wanted to check in. Sending love and light."
Adriella blinked. For a moment, confusion clouded her. Why now? Why this friend? But as the words sank in, something inside her softened. It wasn't Tobi. But it was something. A reminder that the universe still held threads that connected her to the living.
She let out a shaky laugh through her tears. The sound was strange, fragile, almost foreign. She wiped her damp cheeks, reading the message again, as if to prove it was real.
The ache in her chest didn't vanish. The grief didn't dissolve. But the loneliness loosened its grip, just slightly. Enough for her to breathe.
She reached for her journal, flipping past the letter she had written earlier that day. With hands still trembling, she scribbled a single line beneath it:
"Tonight I remembered that even echoes can be answered. Maybe not in the way we hope, but in ways we need."
She stared at the words until her vision blurred again, but this time the tears were gentler. She set the journal down, tucked the phone under her pillow, and closed her eyes.
The house was still quiet. The ache was still there. But wrapped in exhaustion, clutching that unexpected reminder of connection, Adriella drifted into sleep.