Ada didn’t mean to play it again.

At least, that’s what she told herself every time her thumb hovered over the screen. But somehow, almost unconsciously, she always found her way back to that same message.

“I’ll call you later.”

His voice was light, almost playful. Like nothing in the world could possibly go wrong.

She closed her eyes as it played, letting the sound wrap around her like a memory she wasn’t ready to let go of.

It had been three months.

Three months since the accident.

Three months since everything stopped.

That day had started like every other.

Ada had woken up late, rushed through breakfast, and nearly forgotten her phone at home. She remembered laughing when she saw his message:

“You and this your forgetful self 😄”

She had rolled her eyes and typed back quickly:

“At least I remembered you.”

He responded with a voice note.

She hadn’t even listened to it immediately.

That was the part that haunted her the most.

The memory played in fragments now.

She was in a bus, squeezed between two strangers, the Lagos heat pressing against her skin. Notifications kept coming in, but she ignored them.

Work emails. Group chats. Noise.

Later.

She would listen later.

It wasn’t until the evening, after everything had already changed, that she finally pressed play.

But by then, the world she knew had shifted.

The call came around 3:17 PM.

Unknown number.

She almost didn’t pick it.

“Hello?”

“Is this Ada?” the voice asked, hesitant.

“Yes…”

“There’s been an accident.”

Everything after that felt unreal.

Hospitals. White walls. People speaking in low voices. Words she didn’t fully understand—but somehow understood too well.

“He didn’t make it.”

That night, she sat on her bed, staring at her phone.

Her fingers trembled as she opened their chat.

There it was.

That unread voice note.

She pressed play.

“Hey… I know you’re probably busy, but I just wanted to hear your voice. Call me when you can, okay? I’ll call you later.”

She froze.

Her chest tightened as the weight of those words settled in.

Later.

There was no later.

Days turned into weeks.

Weeks into months.

People came around at first—friends, family, neighbors.

They brought food, kind words, and silence when words failed.

“You’ll be okay,” they said.

“Time heals,” they said.

But time didn’t feel like healing.

It felt like distance.

Distance from his voice.

From his laughter.

From the way he used to say her name like it meant something.

At night, when the world grew quiet, Ada would reach for her phone.

She told herself it was just to check messages.

Just to scroll.

But somehow, she always ended up there.

That voice note.

She would press play.

Again.

And again.

And again.

One evening, her friend Kemi noticed.

“You’re still listening to it?” she asked gently.

Ada didn’t look up. “It’s all I have left that sounds like him.”

Kemi sat beside her. “Ada… you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

Ada swallowed hard. “If I stop… it’ll feel like he’s really gone.”

Kemi didn’t respond immediately.

Because deep down, she understood.

The voice note became more than just a message.

It became a bridge.

Between what was…

And what would never be again.

Sometimes, Ada would talk back to it.

“I was busy that day,” she whispered once. “I was going to call you, you know.”

Her voice broke.

“I just didn’t know I didn’t have time.”

One night, during a heavy rainstorm, the power went out.

The room fell into darkness, the only sound the steady rhythm of rain against the roof.

Ada sat quietly, her phone in her hand.

Battery: 3%.

She stared at the screen.

At his name.

At the voice note.

Her thumb hovered.

Then slowly… she pressed play.

“I’ll call you later.”

The phone died before the message finished.

Silence.

Deep, heavy silence.

Ada sat there, the darkness pressing in around her.

For the first time in months, there was no replay.

No echo.

No voice.

Just… absence.

Tears rolled down her face, not sudden, but steady. Quiet.

Real.

“I can’t keep living like this,” she whispered into the darkness.

Not because she didn’t love him.

But because she did.

The next morning, she charged her phone.

She opened their chat again.

Her chest tightened—but this time, she didn’t press play.

Instead, she held the phone close and took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Not goodbye.

Not yet.

But something close.

Weeks later, Ada still missed him.

She still thought about him at random moments—when she saw something funny, when she heard a song he liked, when her phone buzzed unexpectedly.

But she stopped replaying the voice note every night.

Not because she forgot.

But because she was learning something harder:

To remember… without holding on so tightly that it hurt to breathe.

One evening, she sat by her window as the sun set, painting the sky in soft shades of orange and gold.

Her phone lay beside her.

Quiet.

She picked it up, hesitated, then opened the chat.

Her finger hovered over the voice note.

This time, she smiled faintly.

“You said you’d call me later,” she whispered.

She looked out at the fading light.

“I guess… I’ll hear you again someday.”

And for the first time in a long while, the silence didn’t feel so empty.