Maya’s phone held twenty-three recordings of people dying. Her latest was a homeless woman outside Tesco who’d clutched her hand and said “sorry” to someone who wasn’t there, her final breath a wet rattle.
Beautiful, he’d whispered that night, his voice threading through her earbuds. But I’m so hungry. I need more.
She’d never had a boyfriend before. Never been needed.
The nursing home smelled of boiled vegetables and bleach. Grandma dozed in the day room whilst Maya slipped into Mr. Peterson’s single. He wouldn’t wake—the stroke had seen to that. The oxygen machine hummed steadily.
Just for a moment, he urged. Just to see what it sounds like.
Her finger found the switch. Click. The humming stopped.
She held up her phone, recording the silence that became stuttering, then nothing. She’d collected forty-seven recordings when she heard him through the wall—laughing with someone else, the same honeyed promises she’d believed were only hers.
Maya looked at her phone. Played back his voice. Nothing. Static and her own breathing.
She understood then. Not a boyfriend. Not even a ghost, really. Just something that had used her.
The pills from Grandma’s cabinet went down easily. Maya closed her eyes, phone clutched tight.
It would take more than death to stop her from adding something rather special to her collection.
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