I slept very little.
Kept refreshing my phone. Waiting for three little dots. For a "read" receipt. For something.
She didn't respond.
But perhaps she was asleep. Perhaps she was thinking. Perhaps it meant something, and she just didn't know what to say.
I told myself that over and over again until I finally drifted off at 3 a.m.
When I awoke, still no response.
No read. No dot. No anything.
My chest squeezed too hard, as if my body had already known what my mind could not bring itself to accept.
I looked again at her text — that lone word from days ago:
"Hey."
And my reply below it, waiting patiently in the dark.
"Please don't leave."
She didn't even read the message.
At school, everything felt wrong.
Her empty desk. First period came and went.
Second, too.
People started to whisper.
I heard her name three times down one hallway.
"Did she get sick?"
"Did she post something weird last night?"
"No, but her tale's gone. Like, deleted."
By lunchtime, there were rumors.
Something about a note.
Something about a hospital.
Something about too late.
I couldn't catch my breath.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
I headed to the back stairs — where I'd witnessed her cry. It was vacant now. Cold.
I sat where she sat. My phone buzzing in my hand like it was mocking me.
I reopened her conversation. Typed the last message.
"I'm so sorry."
But I did not press send.
Because sorry does not turn back anything.
Does not break the silence when it gets to stay.
The worst kind of pain in the world isn't watching somebody leave. It's knowing they did — and you could have stopped them, but did not.