The cab smelled like ozone. Burnt wiring. A short somewhere under the dash. The check engine light was a poisonous yellow eye. Staring.
Kenji drove. Hands at ten and two. Empty. Rain smeared the world into a watercolor of gray and neon. Another night. Another shift. Another nothing.
His phone buzzed on the passenger seat. An old flip phone. A brick. He never changed the number. A stupid hope. A superstition.
It buzzed again. A text. Unknown number.
He grabbed it. Thumb fumbling. The cab swerved. A horn.
The text was a photo. A picture of a picture. Blurry. Taken through glass.
The rooftop photo. Their photo. The blue. The two ghost kids. Not torn. Whole.
His breath left his body. Vanished. The ozone smell turned sharp. Metallic. Like blood.
Below the photo, a line of text.
*She's gone. Two days ago. Car accident. Route 17. I thought you should know. - M*
He read it. Again. Again. The words didn't connect. They were black marks. Scratches on glass.
Car accident.
Route 17.
Gone.
The phone slipped. Hit the floor mat. Face down. He kept driving. The wipers slapped. Left. Right. Left. Right.
A memory. Not a sweet one. A shatter.
March. The ice was melting. Dirty slush in the gutters. The photo was due back. Tomorrow. She'd meet him at the convenience store. Hand him his half. A ceremony.
He was at home. Waiting. His mother was crying again. This time not quiet. Loud. Wailing. The phone was in her hand. She was screaming into it. "You can't! You can't leave us with this!"
His father's debts. Not traveling. Gambling. Lost. All of it. The bank. The men at the door. The eviction notice. A white piece of paper on the kitchen table. A death sentence.
He stood in the doorway of his room. Listening. The world was crumbling. The walls felt thin. Paper.
His own phone rang. The landline in the kitchen. His mother screamed at him to get it.
He picked up. "Hello?"
It was Aoi's father. Voice like dry ice. "Kenji. You will not see my daughter again. You will not call. You will not stand on that roof. She is leaving for Kyoto. Tonight. Early. This ends. Do you understand?"
He couldn't speak. The words were lumps of clay in his throat.
"Your family is a ruin," the voice said. Cold. Clean. "You are a ruin. You will drag her down. I am saving her from you. Do not contact her. If you do, I will ensure what is left of your family is buried."
Click.
The dial tone was a high-pitched scream.
He dropped the phone. Ran. Out the door. Down the stairs. Into the slush. He ran toward her building. The lemon-polish prison. His chest was fire. His lungs ripped.
He got to the front entrance. Pressed all the buzzers. No answer. He yelled her name. Into the intercom. Into the street. "AOI!"
A window opened above. Fourth floor. Her father's face. A pale moon of disgust. "Leave. Now."
"Let me talk to her!"
"She does not want to talk to you."
A lie. A clean, cruel lie.
"You're lying!"
The window slammed.
He stood there. Soaking in meltwater. His shoes were full of cold. He looked up at her window. Dark. Was she there? Was she watching? Did she believe her father?
He had to tell her. About the debt. The eviction. The ruin. He had to explain. He had to tell her the promise wasn't dead. Just wounded. Just needing time.
He waited. An hour. Two. The cold ate into his bones. The light in her window stayed dark.
He was a ruin. Standing in a ruined street.
He left. Walked home. The world had lost its sound. A silent film. His mother was gone. The apartment was empty. Just the white notice on the table. The smell of old cabbage and defeat.
He never got his half of the photo.
She left for Kyoto that night. He learned later. From a neighbor. A whispered rumor.
The shatter wasn't a sound. It was a silence. A vast, endless quiet where their future used to be.
The cab was stopped. In the middle of the lane. The light was green. Cars were going around. Honking.
Kenji stared at the phone on the floor. The screen was dark.
Gone.
But she was already gone. She left in 1999. The accident… that was just the period. On a sentence that ended twenty-seven years ago.
He bent. Picked up the phone. Opened it. The image was still there. The two ghosts. Smiling their grimace smiles.
He deleted the text. The photo.
He put the cab in gear. Pulled forward. The smell of ozone was gone. Just the wet dog smell of his own coat. The stale tobacco.
The shatter was old news. He'd been living in the broken pieces his whole life.
The tragedy wasn't the accident. The tragedy was the twenty-seven years of silence before it. The empty space where she used to be in his world.
He drove. The night swallowed him. A piece of debris. Floating in the dark.