My Ex Died Years Ago—So Why Did He Just Text Me Our Code Word?

The message came in at 2:14 a.m., which was already strange—no one texts me at that hour anymore. My phone vibrated once, and I groggily reached for it without really opening my eyes.

I wish I hadn’t.

“Pineglass.”

One word. That’s all it said.

But I dropped my phone like it had burned me.

Because only one person in the world knew what that word meant.

And he was dead.

I met Evan during my final year at university. He was the charming kind of trouble you knew you should avoid but didn’t want to. An aspiring screenwriter with a crooked smile and a reckless streak, he had a way of making the world feel like a puzzle you could solve with a good line of dialogue and a bottle of wine.

He was the first person I ever really let in. And he was the first person who ever taught me about code words.

“Someday,” he said, “we’ll be in real trouble. The kind you can’t explain. So we need a word. Something random. Something no one else would ever say to us unless it was real.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like a secret agent?”

He grinned. “Exactly.”

We settled on ‘Pineglass’—a weird combination of his love for forests and my obsession with collecting vintage drinking glasses.

It was a joke. A silly, sentimental thing.

Until now.

Evan died in a car crash four years ago. It was late. He was driving back from a writer’s retreat in Vermont, and his car veered off the road. They said he died instantly. The funeral was closed casket. I never saw his body.

But I saw the crash site. I saw the photos. I read the reports.

He was gone.

I grieved him. Fell apart, rebuilt myself, and eventually moved on.

So the text that appeared on my phone, from an unknown number, was not just bizarre.

It was terrifying.

At first, I thought it was some cruel prank. Maybe one of his old friends trying to be edgy. But Evan didn’t have many friends. And none of them would’ve known that word.

I scrolled through the number: +1 (646) 932-0XXX.

New York area code.

Blocked it.

Deleted the message.

Tried to forget.

Didn’t work.

The next day, I was walking home from work when I passed a bakery Evan used to take me to. I hadn’t been there in years. But something made me stop.

The sign on the window had changed. It now read:

“Try our new Pineglass Muffins!”

I stared at it for a solid minute. There was no such thing as a Pineglass muffin. That wasn’t a flavor. That wasn’t anything.

I walked in.

“Hey,” I said to the woman behind the counter, “what’s the Pineglass muffin?”

She smiled, slightly confused. “Oh, that sign? Yeah, sorry—we haven’t made them yet. Someone called and placed a custom order under that name. Said it would be a surprise.”

“Did they leave a number?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Just said someone would come asking.”

That night, I didn’t sleep.

I didn’t even try.

I stayed up reading old messages from Evan, buried deep in an old Gmail folder I had sworn I’d delete. Rereading the kind of conversations you have when you think you have forever.

One message, from August 2019, stood out:

“If I ever go, don’t believe everything they say. Not right away. Promise me?”

I had replied:

“You’re not going anywhere.”

His last message in that thread:

“Just remember: Pineglass.”

The next morning, I called his sister, Margo.

We hadn’t spoken in years. Things had ended weird between us after the funeral—too much grief, too many half-said things.

But she answered after two rings.

“Hey,” she said, hesitating. “It’s… been a while.”

I didn’t waste time.

“I got a message,” I said. “From Evan.”

She was quiet.

“It was the word. The code word.”

Her voice dropped. “Pineglass?”

I froze.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“He told me once. Right after you two broke up. Said if anything ever happened to him, I’d know what to look for.”

She exhaled hard. “I thought it was just one of his dramatics.”

I didn’t know whether to be hurt or relieved. Maybe both.

“But… that word came back recently for me too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got a postcard,” she said. “From Vermont. Just one word on the back. No stamp. No return address.”

My stomach sank. “When?”

“Four days ago.”

Something wasn’t right.

It was as if he was trying to reach both of us. Not haunting. Not malicious. But deliberate. Targeted.

The only two people who ever knew what Pineglass meant.

I needed more.

I drove to Vermont that weekend.

To the retreat he’d attended. It was still running, same location, same building.

I booked a spot under a fake name. I didn’t want to freak anyone out.

The lodge manager was a kind woman named Jules. When I asked if she remembered Evan from years ago, she frowned.

“Yes,” she said. “He was… interesting. Quiet. Always writing. And he left something behind.”

She disappeared for a moment and came back with a dusty leather notebook.

“My husband found it behind a loose panel in the room he stayed in.”

I took it with shaking hands.

The cover was worn, but the inside was intact.

It was Evan’s handwriting.

But the entries weren’t stories.

They were notes.

Coordinates. Observations. Names. A sketch of a tree with an X near the roots.

And on the last page:

“If they find this: I didn’t crash. I ran.”

“Don’t trust them. Go to the tree. Code: Pineglass.”

I cried that night.

Not out of fear—but because some part of me had always known something felt off about the way he left.

I drove to the edge of the forest he had sketched. Followed the coordinates.

It took hours.

But I found it.

The tree had been scarred—deliberately. Cut in a clean rectangle.

I pried at the bark.

Inside was a rusted metal tin.

Inside the tin: a USB stick and a single photo.

Evan. Standing in front of a gas station in New Jersey. The photo was dated two months after his death.

I couldn’t breathe.

I took the USB back to my hotel.

Plugged it into my laptop with trembling fingers.

It contained a series of audio files.

Evan’s voice, rambling, terrified.

“If you're listening to this, I didn’t die in that crash. I faked it. Or rather—I let someone fake it for me. I was part of something. Something bad. I thought I was writing fiction. I thought I was being clever.”

“Turns out, I was documenting things that were real. Too real. People started following me. Threatening me. I tried to back out, but it was too late.”

“They offered me a choice. Disappear or disappear. I chose the first.”

“But I knew I couldn’t vanish forever. Not without leaving pieces behind.”

“Pineglass is the trail.”

“You’re the only person I trusted enough to find it.”

I didn’t know what to do.

I still don’t.

I contacted Margo. Played her the file. We sat in stunned silence over the phone for ten minutes.

“He’s alive?” she finally whispered.

“I think so.”

“What now?”

I didn’t have an answer.

But I know one thing: someone helped him disappear.

Someone with resources.

Which means someone could be watching now.

The last message I ever got was three days ago.

It came from a different number, but the message was unmistakable.

“I’m okay. For now. Don’t dig further. Burn the USB. Stay safe. – E”

I haven’t responded.

And I haven’t burned the USB.

Because if someone tried to erase Evan once, they might try again.

And if he trusted me to find the truth, I owe it to him to see it through.

Final Note:

I’ve changed my name. I’ve changed my number. I’ve encrypted this story.

But someone will find it.

Maybe you already have.

If you ever receive a message—just one word—Pineglass…

Don’t ignore it.

It means the truth is trying to find its way home.