Raka stared at the missed call notification from Nayla like it was a glitch. A hallucination. Something his phone had made up.
She had never called him before.
Not once.
Nayla wasn't a caller. She was barely even a texter. Even when she replied, it always felt like the product of some internal storm carefully chosen words delivered after invisible battles. A phone call from her felt… intimate. Loud, even, in its rarity.
He called back immediately.
No answer.
He stared at the ceiling. The soft blue light of his phone screen felt too bright in the quiet room. Every passing second made the silence feel heavier.
Ten minutes later, her text came.
"Sorry. That was a mistake."
He hesitated. Then typed carefully:
"Everything okay?"
No reply.
He didn't expect one. Not right away. He knew her rhythm now, slow, deliberate. But it didn't stop the concern from curling in his chest like a fist.
Later that night, just past midnight, another message buzzed through.
"I wasn't going to say anything. But I had a rough day."
He sat up, the blanket slipping off his shoulders.
"Can I ask why?"
She took her time. Minutes passed. Then:
"A coworker made a joke about how I'm antisocial. Said it in front of everyone. They laughed. I didn't."
Raka's chest tightened. He could picture it too clearly, Nayla frozen, alone in a room full of laughter not meant for her.
"That's not fair," he replied. "You're just… reserved. That's not a flaw."
A pause. Then she wrote:
"I know. But sometimes, I wish I could be easier."
His thumbs hovered before he sent:"You're not hard. Just honest."
She didn't reply after that.
But the next morning, his phone lit up with a photo.
A window. Sunlight spilling across wooden bookshelves. Dust in the air, catching the light just right. A quiet, still kind of beautiful.
No caption.
But Raka understood.
It meant: I saw something warm and thought of you.
It meant: I'm still here.
And that, to him, meant everything.