Dead Ringer

The text came at 2:47 AM—the hour when honest things get said, or terrible mistakes are made.

Mara's iPhone lit up her bedroom like a small, desperate galaxy. She knew without looking that it was Daniel. Her best friend since college, the person who'd held her hair back when she threw up cheap wine, who'd cried with her when her mother died. Now he lived three hours away and they talked mostly through screens.

She stared at his name glowing there. Daniel.

Another text. Then another. A cascade of words she couldn't bring herself to read.

Mara rolled over, press her face into the pillow. The phone buzzed against her nightstand, insistent as an intruder. She'd told him weeks ago—she couldn't do this anymore. The late-night confessions. The emotional whiplash. The way he'd profess his soul on Friday night and ghost her by Monday morning.

He was in love with her. Or maybe he just loved the way she made him feel.

Her phone chimed again. A voicemail.

Mara sat up, hair tangled, heart hammering. She pressed the phone to her ear.

"I'm sorry," Daniel's voice cracked. "I'm sorry I'm doing this. I just—every time I see you, I want to say everything, and then I freeze up and turn into this complete zombie, and then I'm drunk-dialing you at three in the morning like some pathetic—"

He laughed bitterly.

"I talked to Sarah today. She asked how you were. I said I didn't know. Isn't that fucked? My best friend, and I don't know if you're okay."

Mara's throat tightened. She'd been meaning to call. For weeks now, she'd thought about it. But life had gotten in the way. Work. The new apartment. The way it felt easier to scroll through Instagram than to have the same conversation again—the one where they both wanted things they couldn't have.

"I miss you," Daniel said quietly. "Even if it's just as friends. I'd rather have you in my life as a friend than not at all."

The message ended.

Mara sat in the silence, her thumb hovering over his contact. She could call back. Or she could put the phone down and let him think she was asleep, preserve the fragile distance they'd built.

Her iPhone dimmed, went dark. A mirror.

In the black screen, she saw her own face—exhausted, lonely, human. Not a zombie. Not yet.

She pressed call.