Chapter 16: Echoes Returning 

The email came just after midnight.

David had been scrolling through the flood of new comments on his latest blog post when it landed in his inbox. The subject line was plain, almost hesitant:

Subject: I think it's time we talked.

Sender: Zayan

David stared at it, his cursor hovering for a full minute before he clicked.

Tomorrow, if you're free. I'll be near the old station where he used to sketch.

That was it. No greeting. No apology. No sign-off.

Just a quiet message, heavy with unspoken weight.

David leaned back in his chair, the laptop's glow dim against the soft shadows of his room. Outside the window, the wind rattled the glass, low and constant—like someone knocking to be let in but too afraid to shout.

He read the message again.

Then he closed the laptop gently, as if afraid any sudden movement might disturb something fragile.

He wasn't sure if he wanted the truth.

Not tonight.

The clouds were heavy the next morning, thick and unmoving. They blanketed the sky in a dull gray that turned everything beneath it soft and muted. It hadn't rained yet, but the air was swollen with the threat of it.

David arrived early.

The old train station stood at the edge of town, where the tracks met the overgrowth and disappeared into trees. It had been abandoned for years—its roof sagging, benches cracked, graffiti fading. Ivy climbed the walls like veins, and shattered glass crunched underfoot.

He walked slowly across the platform, boots echoing in the emptiness.

Near the far wall, half-hidden by moss, he found it—the quote Mavia had carved with a pocketknife during one of their visits years ago:

Some of us belong to silence more than sound.

The words were faint now, weathered and cracked, but still legible. David traced them with a fingertip. The truth of that line had haunted him for weeks.

But today, it felt different. Today it felt… incomplete.

He heard footsteps behind him.

Turning, he saw Zayan approaching.

He looked older somehow. Not just in his face, but in the way he moved—like someone who had carried too much alone for too long. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his coat, and his eyes flicked up to meet David's with a quiet kind of caution.

They stood beside each other for a while, facing the carved quote in silence.

Zayan spoke first.

"He used to read that line out loud every time we came here," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I think he was trying to decide if it was true."

David didn't answer. He didn't need to.

The silence between them was no longer hostile. Just full—like two people standing on the edge of something neither of them had the language to name.

Zayan exhaled slowly.

"I owe you the truth."

David looked at him. "Then say it."

They sat on a splintered bench, the platform stretching empty around them. Leaves rustled in dry spirals across the floor. The old rails were rusted red, vanishing into the horizon.

Zayan stared straight ahead, fingers twitching against the edge of the bench.

"I loved him," he said finally. "But not the way he wanted me to. Or maybe I did, and I just couldn't admit it to myself."

David kept his eyes on the rails.

Zayan went on.

"I told myself it wasn't the right time. That if I waited long enough, it would get easier. That clarity would come. But all I did was run."

He looked at David then, eyes glassy but resolute.

"When he gave me the letter, I didn't read it. I couldn't. Holding it… it made everything too real. And I thought if I didn't open it, I couldn't hurt him worse than I already had. But I was wrong."

"You made him think his love was too much," David said quietly.

Zayan winced. "I know."

There was a long silence, broken only by the wind pressing against the broken windows and the distant sound of a dog barking far off in the neighborhood beyond.

"I wish I could go back," Zayan said, voice cracking.

"We all do," David replied. "But we don't get to. All we can do is stop running."

They rose and walked slowly along the edge of the platform.

The train station was falling apart, but still held echoes. David could almost hear their teenage voices—Mavia laughing, sketching quietly, reading lines from his journal aloud in the echo of rusted walls.

Zayan stopped by a low wall covered in moss.

"He drew us here once," he said. "Just our outlines, sitting side by side. I didn't ask him what it meant. I think I was afraid of the answer."

David remembered that sketch.

Mavia had once torn it out of his book and crumpled it, saying it didn't look right. But David had salvaged it, pressed it flat again. It still lived in the box under Mavia's bed.

Just outlines.

Incomplete.

"I think now I understand what he was trying to say," Zayan murmured.

Then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sealed envelope. He held it out, not meeting David's eyes.

"I kept it," he said. "His letter. I never read it. Not until last week. I didn't throw it away. I couldn't. But I think… I think it's not mine to keep anymore."

David accepted the envelope gently, like receiving something sacred.

"Do you want me to read it?"

Zayan nodded. "I think he'd want someone to."

That night, the house was quiet again.

Not mournful—just still.

David sat at Mavia's desk. The old lamp cast a soft pool of light across the wooden surface. Outside, rain tapped against the windowpane like a gentle reminder of time passing.

He opened the envelope with careful fingers.

Mavia's handwriting curved across the page, messy in some places, hurried in others.

Zayan,

You were the first person I trusted with the part of me I didn't have a name for. You saw me in moments when I didn't even see myself.

This letter isn't a question. It's not a confession I expect to be answered. It's just the truth.

I love you.

Not because of anything you did or didn't do. Not even because you loved me back. I love you because, for a moment, you made me believe I could be more than what I feared I was.

If this is too much—it's okay.

But I had to say it once.

Yours,

M.

David read it twice, then folded it slowly.

His eyes burned, but the tears didn't fall.

Instead, he lit a candle on the desk.

Not in mourning.

In presence.

Then he placed the letter in the box with the others—the final missing piece.

The story was still unfinished, but the silence had finally been broken.

The next afternoon, David returned to the station.

The clouds had lifted, just enough to let slivers of sun break through.

He carried a piece of white chalk in his pocket.

The platform was empty. The wind had quieted. The trees around the edges whispered gently, their leaves rustling like applause in the distance.

He walked to the wall where Mavia had carved his favorite quote.

Some of us belong to silence more than sound.

David stared at it for a long time.

Then, beneath it, he wrote in bold strokes:

He did not belong to silence.

He just didn't know the right name for the sound he was.

He stepped back.

The chalk dust clung to his fingers, and he wiped them on his jeans.

The train station no longer felt abandoned.

It felt like memory.

It felt like presence.

It felt like someone had once loved here.

And someone had finally listened.

End of Chapter 16