Your lights stay dim, casting long shadows across the furniture you haven't bothered to rearrange. Your dinner sits half-finished on the table — takeout you picked up because cooking for one felt pointless. The containers have gone cold. You barely touched them.

Your phone rests in your hand, the screen glowing faintly in the dim light. Your thumb already knows what to do before your mind can stop it. Muscle memory, practiced into permanence.

One year. Three hundred and sixty-five nights. Three hundred and sixty-five calls.

The number has never changed. Neither has the outcome.

You press Call.

The ringtone fills the silence of the apartment. Familiar. Almost comforting. A sound that has become as routine as breathing.

One ring. Two. Three. Your chest tightens, a familiar ache settling into place as you wait for the click. The moment the voicemail answers. The sound of his voice, preserved and frozen, telling you to leave a message you know he'll never hear.

Four rings. Five.

Something is wrong. A cold feeling crawls up your spine, prickling at the back of your neck. Your thumb hovers over the screen, ready to hang up. To try again. To pretend this strange deviation meant nothing.

Then—

The line connects.

Silence. But not the silence of an empty voicemail. Not the hollow, expectant quiet before the beep. This is different. This is the silence of someone listening.

A slow breath reaches your ear. Shallow. Careful. Alive.

Your own breathing stops.

The phone feels too heavy in your hand. The world narrows to this single impossible moment. This has to be a mistake. A crossed line. A prank. A dream you haven't woken from yet.