Chapter 5: Shadows in the Drawer

The sun hung low in the sky when David returned home. The golden light bled through the windows like something ancient, like memory itself had peeled the clouds back for one last look. He had expected silence—thick, unyielding—but instead, the house hummed softly, drawers opening and closing upstairs, like someone was searching… or remembering.

"Meher?" he called.

Her voice floated down from Mavia's room. "Up here."

David climbed the staircase slowly, one hand on the banister, the other clutching the notebook against his chest. Each step creaked beneath him, like it too had a memory to share.

He found her kneeling beside Mavia's desk. The bottom drawer was half-open, and beside her sat a worn shoebox. Her hands hovered above it, almost reverent. She wasn't rifling. She was listening.

"I wasn't snooping," she said softly, without turning. "I just… I needed to feel him again."

David lowered himself beside her, the air between them still and sacred. The room smelled faintly of dust and lavender—Mavia's old perfume, worn on collars, soaked into pillowcases, clinging to the walls like a ghost that refused to leave.

"What is it?" he asked.

Meher slowly lifted a bundle of letters from the box—folded sheets sealed with strips of colored tape. The paper had softened with age, the corners frayed like they'd been held and re-held.

On the outside, in Mavia's careful scrawl, was a list of names.

David's name was there.

So was Meher's.

And Karim's. And Areeba's.

And one name neither of them recognized.

"Zayan," Meher read aloud. "Do you know who that is?"

David shook his head. "No. Never heard him mention it."

A strange chill passed between them.

Meher placed the bundle gently on the floor. "Do we open them?"

David hesitated, then nodded. "He meant for us to find them. He labeled them. It wasn't accidental."

She picked hers up. David reached for his, fingertips trembling slightly.

The seal peeled like skin from old wounds.

Inside was a letter written in Mavia's smallest, neatest script.

---

David,

If you're reading this, it means I didn't stay long enough.

I hope you know it wasn't because of you.

It was because I couldn't see a version of myself worth keeping.

You were my light in a dark hallway. And when I thought I'd lost you, I forgot how to walk forward.

Don't carry my silence like punishment. It wasn't meant to hurt you. It was the only thing I had left that didn't ask anything from me.

Forgive me. And if you can't… just remember me.

— Mavia

---

The words landed like a stone to the chest.

David didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Just stared, as if reading it once wasn't enough to make it real.

Meher rested a hand on his shoulder. "He loved you, David."

David folded the letter slowly, like closing a wound. "Then why didn't he ask for help?"

"Because he already believed he wouldn't survive the answer."

David looked down at the bundle and reached for the one labeled Zayan. His hands were steadier now, but the silence around them seemed to lean in, listening.

"Do we read this too?" he asked.

Meher's voice was cautious. "Do you want to know who this person was to him?"

"I think I need to."

They opened it together.

---

Zayan,

I thought, for a long time, that you were my future.

The one person who might understand what the storm inside me sounded like.

But you left. Without telling me why.

Maybe I was too much. Maybe I wasn't enough. Maybe both.

You don't owe me anything. But I needed to write this down, even if you never read it.

Because what you took with you wasn't just your silence—it was the last place I thought I was safe.

I don't hate you. I never did.

But I hope you know you were the first door I opened, and the first one that slammed shut.

— Mavia

---

The quiet afterward wasn't the peaceful kind. It was thick, breathless.

David looked at Meher. Her face was unreadable.

"He was already breaking," she whispered. "Even before we lost him. This… this just confirms it."

David nodded, voice low. "And we never saw the cracks."

Meher picked up the letter again, tracing the edge of the page. "I think he wanted us to find this. Not just to understand him, but to forgive ourselves."

That night, David sat on the edge of Mavia's bed, the letters spread across the comforter like scattered pieces of a broken constellation.

He read them again, slowly. And this time, he noticed something new.

Each letter had a different voice.

To Meher, Mavia was gentle—protective, older-brother warmth in every word.

To Karim, he was grateful.

To Areeba—poetic, measured, aching.

But to David?

The letter was raw.

No metaphors. No detours.

It felt like the only one where Mavia had taken off every mask.

David pressed it against his chest and let his head fall forward. He didn't cry. Not yet. But his throat ached with the weight of everything left unsaid.

Then, for the first time, he didn't flip back to Mavia's words in the notebook.

He opened a blank page—and began to write.

---

You weren't too much.

You were the fire. The silence. The storm.

And I didn't hold the light long enough.

But I'm holding it now, Mavia.

With both hands.

And I'll spend the rest of my life making sure the world sees you too.

You mattered.

You mattered.

You still do.

---

At midnight, Meher found him downstairs, the notebook still open beside him. A cup of tea had gone cold.

"Still reading?" she asked gently.

David shook his head. "Writing. Answering him."

She sat beside him. The lamp between them flickered slightly, casting their shadows together on the wall.

"I think he left all these messages because he knew we'd look for them," David said. "But the page he tore out… that was different."

Meher looked at him. "You think he took it with him?"

David nodded slowly. "I think it was never meant to be read. Not even by us."

They sat in the soft hush of the house, time stretching thin.

Then Meher asked, "You're going to finish his story, aren't you?"

David's voice barely rose above a whisper. "I already started."

---

The final scene was quieter than expected.

David placed the letters back in the box—carefully, lovingly.

He added the notebook, the blue sticky note from Areeba, the last photo of Mavia—now framed in soft wood, corners slightly chipped. He placed it on the desk gently, like tucking someone in.

He didn't speak.

He didn't cry.

But his heart beat with something steadier now.

Not peace.

But purpose.

The kind that burns slowly. Quietly.

The kind that says:

I will remember you.

I will make sure they do, too.

---

End of Chapter 5