Echoes - The silence that once protected him became punishment.

 A black-and-white pencil-style drawing AI generated depicting a man sitting on the edge of a tidy bed in a dimly lit room. Moonlight spills through parted curtains, highlighting the quiet agony in his posture. His head hangs low, hands to his face, shadows moving across the walls as silent music like Lacrimosa echoes in the atmosphere. The image captures the stillness of a mind screaming internally. K Khaled Mohamed Aboubakr Khaled M Aboubakr khaledmaboubakr @khaledmaboubakr Its Not Scripted

When you’re young, life feels simple. But admiration?
That’s a complicated feeling for a quiet kid,  the introverted, to of the class type, who speaks more with his thoughts than his voice.
And in the middle of that silence…
came Grace.

What happened next?
Let’s find out,  through a conversation that might be true... or might not.


Grace:
“Hey, Tommy. It’s been a while.”

Tommy:
“Yeah… it has.”

Grace:
“You look different.”

Tommy:
“So do you… but somehow, you don’t. Not to me.”

Grace:
“You still remember me?”

Tommy:
soft laugh
“How could I forget? You were the first girl I ever liked.”

Grace:
“When?”

Tommy:
“Primary school. You probably didn’t even notice me back then —
I was the quiet kid. Always alone. Always studying.”

Grace:
“I remember someone like that…”

Tommy:
“You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
Your hair… your eyes… your cheeks that always blushed in winter.
Even your nose would turn red in the cold.
I remember everything. Like a painting I saw once and couldn’t look away.”

Grace:
“You never said anything.”

Tommy:
“I couldn’t.
I was scared.
Even when we became friends in high school —
even when we chatted every day, all the time —
I kept it hidden.
I drew you, wrote poems for you, all of it...
but I never showed you the real reason behind it.”

Grace:
“But I liked what you made. I always did.”

Tommy:
“I thought that meant something.
I thought maybe you… felt something too.
So I tried. I dropped hints.
Then I finally said it.”

Grace:
“I remember.”

Tommy:
“And after that…
you changed.
The texts stopped being warm.
You smiled less.
And then, you just... disappeared.”

Grace:
“So why are you still talking to me?”

Tommy:
pauses
“Because you won’t leave.
Even when I try to erase everything —
you’re still here.
In my dreams.
In the silence of my room.
In every version of myself I try to rebuild.”

Grace:
“Maybe it’s time to let go.”

Tommy:
“I know.
But you were more than just a person to me.
You were the reason I painted.
The reason I wrote.
Every part of me that created — created for you.”

Grace:
“Was it love?”

Tommy:
“I don’t know.
Maybe it was just art… made for someone I thought loved me back.
Or maybe it was love. The purest kind.
The kind that never really ends —
it just echoes.”

And then, silence.
The room is empty.
No one's sitting across from him.
No voice answers back.
Just Tommy — still.
Talking to a memory.
Or maybe just a version of her his heart made up.
Because sometimes, when love is left unsaid,
it doesn’t vanish.
It turns into a conversation you keep having with yourself.

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