The Ghost in the Voicemail

the first voicemail came on a Tuesday afternoon, the kind of gray, unremarkable day when nothing feels real anyway. I had just parked my car outside the grocery store. There were melting frozen dinners in the backseat and a half-finished coffee that had gone cold hours ago. I wasn’t really paying attention to anything—certainly not my phone.

And then it lit up.

Liam.

I stared at the screen so long my vision blurred. For a second, I tried to convince myself it was some leftover notification from before the funeral. Some glitch. Some cosmic mistake. Phones do weird things, right?

But the screen was steady.

New voicemail.

My fingers felt like they didn’t belong to me as I hit play.

His voice filled the car, warm and familiar, the kind of voice that had narrated more than half my life.

“Hey, Maya. I think I did something stupid. Call me back, okay?”

Five seconds. That was all. But it cracked something in me I didn’t even realize was still breakable.

I replayed it over and over, hoping the words would rearrange themselves into something logical. They didn’t. By the fourteenth replay, I was shaking so badly I had to grip the steering wheel to steady myself.

I drove home without remembering a single turn.

The second voicemail arrived two days later.

I was sitting on my bedroom floor, surrounded by the kind of memories people never think to throw away—old movie stubs, crumpled notes, the hoodie of his I kept pretending I’d return someday.

The notification buzzed, and for a moment I thought I imagined it. But no—there it was.

The same number. The same impossible reality.

“ I don’t know how to say this. I guess… I should’ve told you sooner.”

He sounded tired. Not physically, but in the way someone sounds when they’ve carried something too heavy for too long. The message ended with a shaky breath that didn’t sound anything like the Liam I knew.

I sat awake long after the message ended, listening to the night shift from one hour to the next.

By the third voicemail, I wasn’t pretending it was a glitch anymore.

His voice was softer this time, almost hesitant.

“I was scared, Maya. That’s why I left that night. I know you think it was an accident… but it wasn’t.”

My mind went blank. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The world narrowed to the quiet hum of my phone speaker.

Liam—the boy who could make the harshest moments feel survivable—sounded like someone drowning. And the worst part?

I never heard it while he was alive.

I threw my phone across the room and cried harder than I did at his funeral.

The fourth voicemail came early Saturday, and something in me already knew it would hurt.

His voice trembled in a way I’d never heard before.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything. I thought keeping quiet would protect you. Maybe I was wrong.”

A faint rustling. A breath. Then:

“The night I died… I wasn’t driving home from work. I went to see you.”

My stomach dropped.

“You weren’t home. I waited outside your window and almost knocked. I almost told you everything.”

Silence stretched between his words and my heartbeat.

And then—

“I was in love with you.”

The world shifted. Just like that. Like a door had been there all along, and I didn’t notice it until it opened.

He kept talking—something about pretending, about carrying feelings alone—but all I could focus on was that sentence echoing in my head.

I was in love with you.

How many moments had I missed? How many glances? How many almost-confessions disguised as jokes or half-smiles?

I would never know now.

The final voicemail came on Sunday night, quiet and steady, as if he had finally decided what he needed to say.

“Hey, Maya. If you’re hearing this… then I guess the messages reached you.”

He sounded calm. Peaceful, even.

“I didn’t record these in advance. Not really. Think of them as pieces of me that never found the courage to exist while I was alive.”

A soft, broken laugh.

“I don’t want you to feel guilty. I just needed you to know the truth. And I want you to forgive yourself for the things you think you missed.”

The last words wavered.

“You were the best part of my life. I hope you let someone love you the way you deserve someday.”

A breath. A pause.

“Goodbye, Maya.”

And that was it.

The message stopped, but the silence afterward somehow felt louder. He was gone—again—but this time with the things he never said finally spoken.

I called his number afterward, knowing full well what would happen. Still needing to do it anyway.

Ring.

Ring.

Then:

“This number has been disconnected.”

I sat on my bed in the dark and finally cried—not for him being gone, but for everything we never said when he was here.

There would be no more messages. No more echoes. But the truth stayed.

Liam had loved me.

And somewhere—wherever he was—I hoped he finally knew I loved him too.