Chapter 2:What He left Behind
Rain tapped gently against the windowpane like a memory trying to get in.
David stirred beneath the heavy blanket in the guest room, eyes unfocused, chest tight. The room was dim — gray light from an overcast sky creeping through thin curtains. Sleep had come in fragments, ripped by ghosts of the past: laughter in an abandoned park, footsteps in empty corridors, and the echo of a message he'd never answered.
He blinked. Still here.
Still in the house where Mavia had breathed his last.
His phone lay face-down on the nightstand, lifeless. Battery dead, just like everything else he hadn't charged. He stared at it for a moment, as if it might buzz anyway. As if maybe Mavia had scheduled one final message to arrive late.
But nothing came.
Silence stretched around him — not just in the room, but inside his ribs, where once something like hope used to live.
Somewhere downstairs, a soft clink — porcelain on wood.
Meher was awake.
---
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold. The kind of cold that made his bones remember every decision he had tried to forget.
The house hadn't changed. Same creaky boards, same chipped paint on the stair railing. The second step still groaned under his weight — the one he and Mavia used to leap over when sneaking downstairs for midnight snacks.
Now even the creak sounded wrong.
Like it was grieving.
He entered the kitchen.
Meher sat at the table, curled around a cup she hadn't sipped. Her dark hair was tied in a messy knot, shadows bruising the space beneath her eyes. In front of her sat a closed notebook — black, worn at the corners, like it had been read and reread until the words inside became skin.
She didn't look up.
David stood in the doorway for a beat too long. Then stepped forward, quietly taking the seat across from her — the same one he always used when Mavia's mom insisted he stay for dinner.
The chair remembered him.
So did the air.
Without a word, Meher slid the notebook across the table.
David stared at it. The title on the cover — scrawled in uneven ink — made his throat tighten.
Things I Couldn't Say.
His fingers hovered above it. "This was his?"
Meher nodded.
"I found it under his bed," she said. "Two days after… everything."
David swallowed, his voice barely audible. "Did he… hate me?"
"No," she said immediately, then hesitated. "But he didn't understand why you left."
Neither did David.
---
Later, David found himself in Mavia's room.
The door creaked open like it hadn't been touched in weeks. Dust danced in the windowlight. The posters were still there — faded anime prints, song lyrics scrawled on sticky notes. A cracked frame on the desk held a photo of two boys at thirteen, arms slung around each other, grins too wide for the camera.
David picked it up.
Mavia's smile stared back at him. Bright. Stubborn. Unafraid.
"I should've stayed," David murmured.
He set the photo down and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank beneath his weight, like it remembered too.
He opened the notebook.
---
Entry One
January 14 – 2:17 a.m.
David doesn't reply anymore. Not like he used to. But that's okay. Maybe he's tired of me. Maybe I said too much.
Or maybe I never said enough.
He always had to wait for me to speak right.
Still… I keep typing messages. I just don't send them.
David's hand trembled slightly as he turned the page.
---
Entry Three
January 26 – 11:41 p.m.
Sometimes I hear the rain and pretend he's still here.
The storms feel like him — loud on the outside, quiet underneath.
I think maybe he forgot me.
Or maybe I'm the one who faded first.
I wonder if I disappeared… would he even come back?
David's breath caught.
He remembered the night of January 26th. He'd stared at his phone for hours that night — fingers hovering over Mavia's name in his contacts, then swiping away. Again. And again.
He flipped to the next page.
---
Entry Four
February 3 – 11:45 p.m.
I know I'm disappearing.
Slowly. Quietly.
Like smoke through a crack in the window.
But if I die, someone needs to tell David something:
He was right.
The words were underlined. Twice.
David stared at the page, numb.
Right about what?
He searched his mind — every conversation, every late-night debate, every stupid thing he'd said when he thought Mavia would always be there to argue back.
He flipped the page.
And froze.
The next page had been ripped clean out.
---
A jagged edge ran down the spine.
David touched the torn paper with shaking fingers.
The rest of the message — the explanation — was gone.
Whatever truth Mavia had tried to leave behind had been taken.
Or hidden.
---
That evening, the rain returned — harder this time.
David found Meher curled on the couch in the living room. A book lay open on her lap, but her eyes weren't reading.
She looked up as he entered.
David stood there for a long second, notebook in hand.
"There's a page missing," he said.
"I know."
"Did you take it?"
Her eyes narrowed. "No. I swear."
"But someone did."
"Yes."
He sat on the floor beside the couch. The notebook dropped beside him with a soft thud.
"Do you think it was your parents?" he asked.
She shook her head. "They don't even know it exists."
"Then who—"
"I don't know."
David leaned back against the couch, eyes on the ceiling. The light above flickered like it was trying to hold on.
Meher pulled her knees to her chest.
"Why did you leave?" she asked.
David didn't respond right away.
He stared at his hands — the same hands that used to hold Mavia's shoulder when he broke down after panic attacks. The same hands that had refused to dial his number when it mattered most.
"I was scared," he said finally.
"Of what?"
"Of staying. Of breaking something already cracked."
Meher's voice was soft. "And what if staying would've fixed it?"
"I didn't know how."
"Neither did he."
---
Later that night, David stood at Mavia's bedroom window.
The one they used to sneak out of in summer, giggling under the moonlight with contraband sodas in hand.
The glass was cold beneath his fingertips. Outside, the street shimmered with rain.
His reflection stared back — hollow eyes, unshaven jaw, hoodie too big.
He opened the notebook again.
He was right.
The line stared back at him.
A sentence without a conclusion. A confession cut short.
He didn't know what he'd been right about.
But he knew what he'd been wrong about.
He'd thought silence was safer than speaking.
He'd thought distance could protect them from damage.
He'd thought there'd be time to explain later.
There hadn't been.
And now, there never would be.
---
As he closed the notebook, something slipped from between the pages.
A folded post-it note — pale yellow, curled at the edges.
He unfolded it with careful fingers.
> Don't let this be the last message.
— M
David pressed it to his chest and let the tears come this time.
---
Chapter End