The phone rang at 2:17 a.m.
I didn’t answer it at first. I was half-asleep on my couch, TV still glowing with a muted infomercial, the kind meant to keep lonely people company through the night. The sound cut through my apartment like a knife—sharp, insistent, wrong.
When I finally looked at the screen, my stomach dropped.
Incoming Call: Me
My full name. My number. Every digit correct.
I laughed once, a dry, nervous sound. A spoof call, I told myself. Some glitch. I almost let it ring out—but the call went to voicemail on its own.
A second later, my phone buzzed.
New Voicemail.
I pressed play.
At first, all I heard was breathing. Fast. Panicked. Too close to the microphone.
Then a voice—ragged, urgent, unmistakably mine.
“Listen to me,” the voice said. “You don’t have much time. If you hear this, it means you stayed. That was the mistake. You need to run. Now.”
My chest tightened. My hands started to shake.
“Don’t go to the bedroom,” the voice continued. “Don’t look in the mirror. And whatever you do—don’t remember.”
The message cut off.
I sat there in the dark, heart pounding, every hair on my arms standing on end. I hadn’t noticed the silence until then—no traffic outside, no neighbors, no hum of the refrigerator. Just the echo of my own voice in my skull.
Don’t remember.
I stood up.
That was my second mistake.
The hallway light flickered as I moved toward the bedroom, despite what the voice had said. I didn’t know why I was walking there. I only knew that my feet remembered the path even if my mind resisted it.
The door was ajar.
Inside, the mirror above the dresser caught my reflection—and something else.
A blur behind me.
The memory hit all at once, violent and suffocating.
I was twelve again. Sitting on the edge of this same bed—different apartment, same feeling. My father’s voice slurred with anger. The smell of whiskey. The sound of my own silence, learned too early, practiced too well.
I remembered the night I ran away for the first time.
I remembered locking the door and pretending not to hear him cry afterward.
I remembered promising myself I’d never be that afraid again.
The blur in the mirror sharpened.
It was me—but younger. Bruised knuckles. Hollow eyes. The version of myself I abandoned when I decided forgetting was easier than healing.
“You left me,” he said. His voice didn’t echo. It pressed. “You survived by erasing me.”
“I had to,” I whispered. “I wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”
He stepped closer. The room grew colder.
“You didn’t survive,” he said. “You paused.”
My phone buzzed again.
Another call. From my number.
I answered it this time.
“You remember now, don’t you?” my voice said—older, steadier. “Good. That means you can still change it.”
“Change what?” I asked.
“The ending.”
The younger me lunged.
I didn’t run.
I reached out.
The moment our hands touched, the fear broke open into grief—years of it, locked away and starved of air. I cried harder than I ever had, and for the first time, I didn’t stop myself.
The room dissolved.
When I woke up, it was morning. Sunlight spilled across the floor. My phone lay silent beside me.
No missed calls. No voicemails.
But the ache in my chest was different now—lighter. Honest.
Weeks later, I sat in a therapist’s office, hands folded, telling the story out loud for the first time. About my father. About the fear. About the part of me I tried to kill just to keep moving.
I didn’t erase the past.
I let it walk with me.
Sometimes, late at night, I still check my phone.
But now, if I ever get that call again, I know what I’ll do.
I won’t run from it.
I’ll answer.
See More: The Shadow of Beauty A Story of Identity & Self-Discovery
