Chapter 20: Unspoken Echoes

The wind shifted the leaves with a gentleness that felt rehearsed, as if the world itself had conspired to make today a little softer. From the window of Mavia's room, David stood with arms folded, watching the garden. The sunlight dappled through the branches of the jacaranda tree, casting delicate shadows over the stone path. It was the same garden where Mavia had once sketched in long stretches of silence, his pencil moving in thoughtful curves while David sat beside him with a book in hand. Back then, the silence had felt natural—shared, not empty.

Now, it echoed.

Behind him, the old wooden floor gave a soft creak.

He didn't need to turn around. "You don't have to knock anymore," he said.

Meher's voice was quiet. "Didn't want to startle you."

"I'm not sure I can be startled anymore," David murmured, eyes still fixed on the jacaranda. Its branches swayed slightly, as if waving at something already gone.

She stepped into the room, her steps tentative but familiar. "You okay?"

David finally turned. His eyes were tired but alert, hollowed but focused. He nodded toward the corner of the room. "I found another note."

Meher's gaze followed his to the desk. The bottom drawer sat slightly ajar, a fray of paper barely visible beneath a tangle of receipts, dried-out pens, and old USB drives.

She knelt beside it and pulled the drawer open slowly, like whatever lay inside might vanish if she moved too fast. The note was folded into a tight square, yellowed slightly at the edges.

David handed it to her without a word.

She unfolded it with care. The handwriting was rushed, jagged—a line written more from urgency than clarity:

> "Some things we bury so deep, even we forget they were ours."

Meher read it twice. Then once more aloud.

"He wasn't talking about objects," she said softly.

"No," David replied, sitting on the bed. "He was talking about pain."

They didn't speak for a while after that. The note sat between them like a mirror, and they both looked into it—seeing different things, feeling the same ache.

---

That afternoon, they went outside.

Not because the garden needed tending. It didn't. The weeds were stubborn, but not wild. The flowers had bloomed in patches, unruly but beautiful. Still, they needed something to do with their hands—something that didn't require answers.

Meher pulled weeds by the bench, the same bench where Mavia once sprawled across the wooden slats, acting as if the world didn't interest him. But he watched everything. David had always thought it was boredom. Now he knew it was observation.

David swept the stone path slowly, pausing every so often to clear a corner or brush moss from a crack. At one point, he stopped completely and stared at a bed of wildflowers growing near the fence. Small, delicate, their colors dancing between lavender and white.

"I didn't even know he liked these," he said under his breath.

Meher looked up, brushing dirt from her palms. "He didn't."

David turned toward her.

"They were mine," she said simply. "He planted them last spring. Said they reminded him of your laugh."

David blinked, stunned. "He never told me that."

"He told me in passing," Meher replied, her voice soft. "But I don't think he meant for me to keep it. I think he meant for you to find it. Eventually."

The wind shifted again, cooler now, brushing past them with the scent of soil and petals. They stood quietly, side by side, the flowers nodding gently in the space between them.

It was a still moment. But not hollow.

A kind of wordless memory planted in full bloom.

---

Later that evening, the house felt quieter than usual. Not empty—just paused.

David and Meher sat on the old couch, a shared blanket thrown loosely over their legs. The coffee table in front of them was cluttered with mugs, pens, and a single candle burning low. The television was off. Music didn't feel right. But the silence didn't hurt anymore.

David had Mavia's notebook open on his lap. The cover had frayed at the corners, and some pages had begun to curl. His thumb traced the spine idly.

"You ever think," David began, his voice low, "that he wanted us to find each other in all this?"

Meher looked at him. "You mean... become closer?"

"Not just that," he said, still looking at the pages. "I mean... maybe he knew we'd break. Separately. And he didn't want that. Maybe... he left pieces behind on purpose. Little ones. So we'd have something to rebuild from."

Meher didn't answer immediately. She turned her face slightly toward the candle, the flickering light playing across her features.

"I think he knew more than he ever said," she said at last.

"And less than we ever assumed."

They both smiled faintly. It wasn't a moment of laughter. But it wasn't sorrow either. It was... peace. A kind of understanding that didn't need to be explained.

David closed the notebook and rested it beside him. Meher picked up her sketchpad for the first time in weeks, flipping through pages slowly until she stopped at one half-finished piece.

He leaned closer.

Three silhouettes. On a bench. Flowers blooming beneath their feet.

David exhaled softly. "That's us."

Meher smiled. "Not exactly. But... close enough."

He didn't say anything after that. Just sat with her, shoulder to shoulder, watching the sketch come to life again under her pencil.

It wasn't romantic.

But it was intimate.

Two people rebuilding from the same ruins—slowly, gently, without pressure.

---

Before bed, David sat down at his desk. The screen glowed faintly in the dim room. He opened the blog and clicked "New Post."

His fingers hovered over the keys for a moment. Then he began to type.

> Today I found a note that said: "Some things we bury so deep, even we forget they were ours."

Grief isn't a moment. It's a tide. It returns. It recedes. It leaves behind things we thought we had let go.

But sometimes, in its slow pull, it uncovers something else—connection.

Meher is still here. Still reading. Still remembering with me.

And maybe that's the quiet miracle Mavia left behind.

He paused, reading it over.

Then he added a final line:

> We carry him. Together.

He titled it Unspoken Echoes and hit "Publish."

A quiet exhale left his lips.

Behind him, Meher stood in the doorway, sketchpad in one hand. She didn't say anything at first. Just walked over and handed it to him.

The drawing was done now.

Three figures on the bench, backs turned, faces undefined—but the feeling unmistakable. At their feet, the wildflowers stretched upward, bright against the inked shadows.

"You finished it," David whispered.

"Yeah."

They looked at it together for a long while.

"I don't know what we're supposed to do next," he said finally.

Meher folded her arms. "Maybe we don't have to know yet."

A beat passed.

"Maybe," she continued, "the next step isn't forward. Maybe it's just… together."

David nodded. And this time, the ache in his chest shifted—didn't vanish, didn't resolve. But it softened.

Not healing.

But hope.

And for now, that was enough.

---

End of Chapter 20