The rain pounded against the window, mirroring the heaviness in Maya's heart. She sat on the edge of her bed, clutching an old photograph—one of her and Alex, laughing in the summer sun. It had been a year since he had vanished without a word, leaving only unanswered questions and an unbearable emptiness.
Every day since then, she checked her phone, hoping for a message that never came. Tonight was no different. Her phone remained silent, just like her apartment.
With a sigh, she stood up, her fingers tracing the worn edges of the photograph. As she prepared to tuck it away in the drawer with all her other memories of him, something fell from behind the frame—an envelope, yellowed with age. Her name was scrawled in his handwriting.
Trembling, Maya tore it open.
"Maya, if you’re reading this, then you’ve already noticed I’m gone. It’s not because I wanted to leave, but because I had no choice. By the time you find this, I’ll be far away, in a place I can’t return from. Please know I loved you more than life itself, and that’s why I did what I had to do."
Tears blurred her vision. What had he meant? Where could he have gone that he couldn’t return from?
As the confusion deepened, her phone buzzed. A text message. She wiped her eyes and picked it up, her heart freezing as she read the words:
"Meet me at the place we first met."
The message was from Alex's number. But that was impossible.
Shaking, Maya grabbed her coat and rushed into the night, the rain drenching her as she made her way to the café where they had met years ago. Her heart raced with a mix of hope and fear. Could it really be him?
She pushed open the door of the dimly lit café, her eyes scanning the familiar scene. And there he was, sitting at their old table. He looked the same, yet somehow different—paler, distant, but unmistakably Alex.
“Maya,” he whispered as she approached, his voice barely audible. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t care about the explanation anymore. She rushed to him, throwing her arms around him. But as her hands touched him, she gasped.
Her arms passed right through him.
"I’m not here," he said softly, his voice tinged with sorrow. "I never was."
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