Sixty-three voicemails.
I stare at the number.
Sixty-three, spanning over the entire time since Rose died.
The timestamps tell their own story—clustered thick in the first months, spacing out gradually, thinning to a trickle that never quite dried up.
She adjusted the frequency but never stopped.
Sixty-three times she called, got my voicemail, and chose to speak into the silence anyway.
I’ve never listened to a single one.
I press play on the first message.
Dated eleven days after the funeral.
Her voice fills the room.
Younger. Rawer.
The voice of a twenty-six-year-old woman who just buried her best friend and is calling the man who won’t answer his phone.
“Lee. It’s Bex. I know you don’t want to talk. I know you’re—I don’t know what you are. But I need you to call me back. Please. I can’t do this alone. Earl can’t—he’s not—” A breath. Shaky. “Just call me, okay? Please.”
Eleven days after the funeral, she was already alone.
Earl was drowning in his own grief.
I had disappeared into the club, into Shadow’s company, into the silence that felt like the only thing I could tolerate. And Bex was calling.
Three weeks after the funeral.
“Lee, pick up the damn phone. She was my best friend. You don’t own the grief.” A pause. The anger deflating. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just—I need to talk to someone who understands. Please. Just call me back.”
She was right.
I acted like the grief was mine—exclusively, possessively—a territory I’d staked and fenced and refused to share.
I took the grief , made it a fortress, and locked everyone out. The woman who loved Rose longest stood outside the walls and shouted until her voice gave out.
Six weeks.
“I went to her grave today. Brought yellow roses. Remember how she said they were the only flowers that smelled honest? I sat there for an hour. Talked to her. Told her you won’t call me back. She’d be so mad at us, Lee. Both of us. You for disappearing and me for—” Long pause. “For everything.”
For everything.
The guilt already there, six weeks in.
The weight of being the reason Rose was on that road, already settling into Bex’s bones, already becoming the thing she’d carry for years without anyone to help her hold it.
I keep playing.
At three months, she’s starting to get angry.
“You know what, Lee? Fine. Don’t call. I’ll handle Earl myself. I’ll handle picking the headstone myself. I’ll handle all of it myself because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done. But just so we’re clear—you’re not the only one who’s drowning. You’re just the only one who’s been given permission to.”
At six months, she’s gone from angry to sad.
