UNSENT

I

I wasn’t planning to text her.
I’d typed and deleted the message at least a dozen times in the past year. Sometimes at 2 a.m., sometimes after those dreams where she was back in the flat, rearranging things. Silent, barefoot, like she used to when Ma was too tired to clean.

That morning, it rained like it hadn’t in months. Not a monsoon downpour — just that low, wet curtain that makes walls sweat. I was sipping cold filter coffee in my Noida flat, swiping through WhatsApp chats I hadn’t opened since Riya’s death.

There it was. Riya — work+home+everything.
Her photo still showed: blurry, with her hand covering half her face. I’d never changed it.

The last thing I’d texted her was a year ago:
“Tell Ma I’ll come Sunday. Just let her rest.”
She never read it.

I didn’t think. I typed something I’d never said out loud.
“You’d have hated the rain today. It made the chai taste like sadness.”

I hit send.

Then I locked the phone. Told myself it would bounce back. The number had been disconnected.
Still, part of me wanted it to go somewhere.

And it did.

Two minutes later, the phone buzzed.
“She would’ve added cardamom.”

***

II

The number was unfamiliar. No profile photo, no name. Just a grey icon.
I stared at the message, blinking like I hadn’t read it right.
I typed:
“Who is this?”

No reply. Not that night. Not the next morning either.

***

III

The second message came in just past noon, while I was hanging my damp towel on the balcony railing.

“Do you miss her more in the evenings? That’s when mine used to feel farthest.”

Something about that line — it snagged.
It wasn’t just the grief in it. It was how familiar it sounded.

I typed and deleted three different replies before settling on:
“Yes.”

That was it. No question. No overthinking.
I didn’t know who was on the other end, but they weren’t a scammer or creep. The words didn’t feel like they came from a stranger.
Not exactly.

At 1:12 a.m., another message came.
“She’s not gone. You know that.”

I replied:
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Three blinking dots. Then:
“Me neither. But some people leave echoes. You just answered one.”

That line stayed with me.
It made me pause brushing my teeth halfway through.
It made me scroll up and read everything again.

I didn’t sleep much that night.

***

IV

A few more messages followed. Not often. Never more than once or twice a day.

They asked about Riya.
What music she liked. If she was the older sibling.
(She wasn’t, but she was the braver one.)

I said yes to questions I didn’t fully understand.
“Did she hum while cleaning?”
“Did she ever say she felt like a borrowed life?”

I remember typing:
“She used to write poems on the backs of receipts. She hated hospitals. And she always wore two different earrings.”

They replied:
“She sounded beautiful. Sad, too.”

It didn’t feel like therapy. Or like manipulation.
It felt like someone was helping me hold a mirror, piece by piece.
Except sometimes, the mirror reflected too much.

***

V

Last Tuesday, they said:
“Do you still have her red kurta?”

I froze.

I hadn’t mentioned the kurta. Not in texts. Not anywhere.

I typed:
“How do you know about that?”

The reply came hours later:
“She loved it. It made her feel like fire. You don’t throw away fire.”

I had buried her in that kurta.
Not even Ma knew that’s the one I chose.

***

VI

That night, I opened her wardrobe again.

The other clothes still hung there, folded the way Ma does everything — with too much care.
But the kurta wasn’t there. Of course not. I knew that.
Still… I checked twice.

Then, without knowing why, I dug out her old phone. We hadn’t given it away. It was in a drawer with expired bank statements and temple calendars.

It was dead. I plugged it in and waited.

Password took a few tries. I remembered her birthday wrong the first time.

Finally, it unlocked.
The background was a photo of the sea.
She hated swimming.

I opened WhatsApp.
One draft message sat unsent.
To a contact named A.

The message read:
“Tell him I’m not angry. Tell him I heard him crying on the train. Tell him I remember everything.”

There was no timestamp. No read receipt.

My hands went cold.
I don’t remember ever crying on the train.
But I must’ve.
Maybe more than once.

***

VII

I typed the number from the draft into my phone.
It didn’t match the one I’d been texting.

I didn’t understand.

So I messaged the one I had been texting.
“Are you A?”

A minute passed.

Then:
“No. But I was listening.”

***

VIII

That reply should’ve chilled me.
It didn’t. Not yet.

But something else started to shift.

I started waiting for their messages.
Checking the phone too often.
Writing replies I didn’t send.

Ma noticed. She always does.

She asked me if I’d been sleeping.
I said yes.
She didn’t believe me.

***

IX

This morning, I got a text.
No greeting. No soft lead-in.

“She’s gone now. Properly. You can stop.”

Just that. No explanation.

I called the number.
For the first time, it rang.

Then disconnected.

I saved the number as “Hope.”

Then I deleted it.
Then saved it again.
Then stared at it until the battery died.

***

X

I haven’t received a message since.
Sometimes, I keep the phone beside my pillow, on silent, just in case.

Sometimes, when it rains, I still expect to hear a ping.
Even if it’s just to tell me what Riya would’ve added to the chai.

The number is gone.
But I hear her in strangers sometimes — a voice on the metro saying, “Mind the gap,” in a way that sounds like her tired laugh.

I still have her phone.
And the photo she never changed — blurry, hand over her face.

Like she’s saying:
Enough.

***

[END]