1. The Silence After Rain
The rain had been falling for three days straight. Not the gentle kind that people write songs about, but the relentless kind that drowns the streets, makes the air heavy, and seeps into your bones until everything feels cold.
Aisha sat curled on her bed, her phone resting on the pillow beside her like a lifeline. It was ridiculous — she knew it — but she couldn’t let go of it. Not when it still held the last photos, the last calls, the last him.
Arjun was gone.
The doctors had called it “instant.” The accident had been brutal, leaving him no chance. Yet somehow that word — instant — was what cut deepest. Because love doesn’t end in an instant. Love lingers. It clings to shadows, to objects, to memories. It makes itself felt in the buzzing emptiness of a phone that no longer lights up with his name.
Except, that night, it did.
At 2:13 a.m., her phone buzzed.
Her eyes, swollen from crying, barely registered the glow until her heart froze. On the screen, lit up in the darkness, was his name: Arjun ❤️.
Hands trembling, she opened the message.
“I’m sorry… I wish…”
That was it. Three words and an ellipsis, hanging there like a broken breath.
She stared, her pulse racing, her mind screaming that this wasn’t possible. She had seen him lowered into the ground. She had touched his cold hand, kissed his silent forehead. Yet here was his name, his words.
Her lips parted. “Arjun?” she whispered, as though the air itself could carry her voice back to him. She typed furiously:
“Is this you? Please… don’t do this to me.”
But no reply came. Only the rain, hammering against the windows like a cruel metronome.
2. The Message That Wouldn’t Let Go
By morning, she convinced herself it was a cruel mistake. Numbers got recycled, accounts hacked, spam messages appeared all the time.
But then, the next night, another text came.
“Meet me where we first met.”
Her stomach twisted. Their first meeting wasn’t common knowledge. It wasn’t even romantic, just a clumsy accident at the library steps, when his coffee had ruined her notes and his wide-eyed apology had melted into laughter. Nobody else knew that. Nobody else could.
Her chest tightened with a mix of dread and longing. She told herself not to go, that grief was making her hallucinate. But when love claws at you, reason doesn’t matter.
At dusk, umbrella forgotten, she walked through the sheets of rain to the library steps. The streetlight flickered weakly above, casting the steps in a golden haze.
The place was empty. Silent.
Her phone buzzed.
“Behind you.”
Heart hammering, she spun around.
A figure stood in the shadows.
3. The Stranger with His Phone
It wasn’t Arjun.
The man wore a hood, rain dripping from the edge, his stance stiff and uncertain. Slowly, he stepped closer, pulling something from his pocket.
Her breath caught. It was Arjun’s phone.
She gasped, her voice breaking. “Where did you get that? Who are you?”
The man’s voice was rough, hesitant. “I… I was there that night. The accident. I should have helped sooner, but…” His words trailed into the rain.
Her body stiffened. “You saw him?”
He nodded, eyes downcast. “He was gone before I could do anything. But before… he tried to say something. He wanted me to tell you he was sorry. That he wished he had more time.”
Aisha’s world spun. She clutched the phone as though holding onto Arjun’s pulse. “Then why text me? Why pretend to be him?”
The man’s voice cracked with guilt. “Because I couldn’t sleep. I thought… maybe if I finished what he wanted to say, you’d have peace. But all I did was hurt you more. I’m sorry.”
Before she could speak, he turned and disappeared into the rain.
4. The Unfinished Sentence
Back home, Aisha sat by the window, staring at the phone in her hands. She turned it on, scrolling through the familiar background picture — her and Arjun, smiling in sunlight.
But then something made her freeze.
The last text wasn’t just incomplete. It wasn’t sent.
It was still in the drafts folder.
She stared, hands shaking. That meant… Arjun had typed it. He had typed it seconds, maybe minutes, before the accident.
Her tears blurred the screen. “I’m sorry… I wish…”
What had he meant to say? Sorry for being late that night? Sorry for leaving her too soon? Wishing for one more day? Wishing for her to move on?
She would never know.
Her chest ached with the weight of words unsaid. She clutched the phone to her heart and whispered the sentence aloud, completing it herself:
“I’m sorry… I wish you knew how much I love you.”
5. The Fever Night
The days that followed blurred together. Sleep eluded her, food tasted like nothing, and her body weakened under the storm of grief. Fever crept in, burning her skin, but still she refused to rest.
Instead, she opened her notebook — the one Arjun used to doodle hearts in. And she began to write.
She wrote their first meeting, the silly fights, the long bus rides, the way he sang terribly but still tried because it made her laugh. She wrote about his watch that always ticked five minutes slow, because he said he liked “stealing time.”
And on the last page, she wrote the words she imagined him leaving for her:
“I’m sorry… I wish I had more time with you. But even if time ended, my love never will.”
When the fever finally broke, she collapsed against the notebook, pages stained with ink and tears.
6. The Final Goodbye
Weeks later, under a clear sky at last, she walked to his grave. The world smelled fresh, like rain had washed it clean. In her hands, she carried the notebook.
Kneeling, she placed it gently against the stone. “I finished your message, Arjun,” she whispered. “I’ll carry your words with me, always.”
Her phone buzzed once more in her pocket. With shaking hands, she pulled it out, heart lurching — but it wasn’t a message. It was a calendar reminder she had set months ago:
“Dinner with Arjun – 7 p.m.”
Her tears fell freely, but this time they came with a smile. She pressed the phone against her lips and whispered, “Yes, love. Always.”
As she walked away, the sun broke through the clouds, scattering light across the wet earth. For the first time, Aisha felt the weight in her chest loosen. The words may have remained unfinished, but the love behind them never would.
Moral
True love doesn’t end with silence. It lingers in unfinished messages, in memories, in the strength to keep living. Sometimes the last text is not about what was written — but about what was felt, forever.