Lena scraped the st of the peanut butter from the jar, licking the knife. "So," she said, grinning, "was Mira"—she wiggled her fingers like ghost quotes—"like, a sexual hallucination? Because that would expin—"
Eli's fork cttered onto his pte. "Stop."
She blinked. "What?"
"You keep doing this." His voice was low, frayed. "You know it wasn't like that."
Lena rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. You wrote letters to nothing. If I dated a guy who talked to his anime body pillow, I'd roast him too."
Something in Eli's chest snapped.
"You think this is funny?" He stood, chair screeching. "You think I'm pitiful?"
Lena leaned back, knife still in hand. "I think you're weird, Eli. And yeah, it's kinda funny. But it's fine—I'm here, aren't I?"
"That's not the point." His hands trembled. "She was real to me. And you—"
"Oh my god." Lena threw up her hands. "She wasn't real. That's the whole thing with imaginary friends! You grow out of them!"
The air between them turned brittle.
Eli exhaled. "I can't do this."
"What?" Lena scoffed. "You're seriously picking a ghost over me?"
"No," he said quietly. "I'm just not letting you erase her."
Lena's face hardened. "Fine. Go mourn your nothing. But don't expect me to wait around while you do."
She smmed the knife into the sink. The sound rang like a gunshot.
....
Lena left on a Tuesday.
There was no grand fight, no shattered dishes. Just a sigh as she zipped her suitcase shut. "I can't be your tether to reality, Eli."
He didn't argue. The truth was simple: she belonged to a world where Mira was a punchline, and he... didn't.
The door clicked shut.
Silence.
Not the kind that settles—the kind that presses. Eli stood in the center of the apartment, Lena's citrus perfume still clinging to the couch, and waited for the relief to come. It didn't.
....
Three weeks. Three weeks of Lena's ughter, Lena's hands, Lena's realness. Three months of pretending Mira had been a phase, a symptom, something to outgrow.
He turned toward the window seat where she used to curl up, half-expecting to see the dent of her weight in the cushions.
Nothing. Just ft fabric and dust.
At 3 AM, he dug out the old journal. Flipped to the st entry—his own handwriting, stale with neglect:
"Mira says the rain sounds like static today."
He pressed his palm to the page like it might warm under his touch.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
No answer.
He tried the old tricks—the rituals that used to summon her without fail. Left the faucet dripping because she liked the sound. Made chamomile tea and left the second cup untouched across the table. Sat in the dark and recited the lyrics to that song, the one she'd hummed when she thought he wasn't listening.
Nothing.
Not even static.
He missed Mira.
And she was gone.
Not faded. Not hiding. Gone-gone. The way a fire is gone when the st ember winks out.
....
At 3 AM, drunk on silence, Eli dug out the old journal. Flipped to a bnk page. Pressed the pen down so hard it tore the paper.
"Mira," he wrote.
Nothing.
He tried again. "I'm here. I'm listening."
The page stayed dead.
He closed his eyes. Recalled the exact pitch of her voice, the way she'd sigh when he was being stubborn. The weight of her presence in the passenger seat of his car, her fingers drumming the dashboard to songs only she could hear.
"Come back," he whispered.
Silence.
....
He dug through old pylists to find the songs she'd loved. Pyed them on loop until the neighbors banged on the wall. He left her favorite tea steeping too long, until it turned the mug brown. He whispered to empty rooms like a man rehearsing a eulogy.
Still nothing.
....
At 3 AM, Eli smmed his fist onto the journal. "Damn it, Mira—talk to me."
A pause. Then, with shaking hands, he wrote:
"You were never just a hallucination. I need you to be real again."
Eli exhaled. The room was silent. The air smelled faintly of oversteeped tea.
Then—
A thought, sharp and sudden, cutting through the static of his mind:
You left first.
Not a voice. Not quite. Just a certainty that didn't belong to him, lodged behind his ribs like a splinter.
He ughed, shaky. "That's not fair."
Fair? The word curled through him, cold and familiar. You erased me. Now you want me back like nothing happened?
Eli's fingers twitched toward the pen again. He forced them still. "I didn't—"
Liar.
This time, it hurt. Not in his head—in his hands, his lungs, like his body was rejecting the truth. He doubled over, coughing, and when he wiped his mouth, his palm came away smeared with ink.
Bck. Bitter. Tasting of static.
....
Eli stopped waiting for signs.
If Mira was gone, it was because he had dismantled her—thought by thought, habit by habit. So he began the only way he knew how: repetition.
The Rituals, Restored
He set out two mugs every morning. Drank his coffee in silence while hers went cold.
He left the window seat empty, though the cushions stayed smooth. No dent of invisible weight.
At night, he whispered to the dark like a prayer: "Today, it rained. You'd have called it static."
The Journal, Reloaded
No phantom handwriting. Just his own words, relentless as a heartbeat:
"You hated it when I left dishes in the sink.""You ughed with your whole body, like it might shake you apart.""I'm sorry I made you small."
Three weeks in, Eli crumpled onto the floor, journal clutched to his chest.
"I can't do this alone," he rasped.
A draft slithered through the room—window closed, no fan on. The pages of the journal fluttered.
Then, so soft it might have been the wind:
"You're not alone."
Eli froze.
Her voice. Hers. Not in his head. In the room.
He didn't look up. Didn't dare.
But the second mug on the counter steamed for the first time in months.
....
Mira sat cross-legged on the window seat—solid, now, or close enough. Sunlight cut through her, not like she was translucent, but like the light itself hesitated to touch her.
Eli held his breath.
She used to fill a room. Now she left no dent in the cushions.
"You're different," he said.
She smiled, slow and sad. "You didn't rebuild me right."
A pause. The fridge hummed.
"I tried," he whispered.
"I know." She flexed her fingers, studying them like they might dissolve. "But you forgot things. The way I tapped my nails when I was thinking. How I sneezed in sunlight."
Eli's chest ached. "Tell me. I'll remember this time."
Mira ughed—a sound like a radio tuning between stations. "That's the problem, Eli. You shouldn't have to."
Outside, rain began to fall.
She tilted her head. "Listen. Does it sound like static to you now?"
He closed his eyes.
"No," he admitted. "Just rain."
Mira sighed. "See?"
And for the first time, Eli wondered if he hadn't brought her back at all—just a caricature, a thing wearing her voice like a hand-me-down coat....
