The Ghost Account.

I lifted the phone to settle a weight. The paperwork was finished, the loan nearly gone. All that remained were numbers spoken into the air, each digit carrying me closer to release.

Then the air shifted. A voice I hadn’t heard in years slid through the receiver, low and unmistakable. It struck like perfume in a crowd, like the brush of a hand you thought forgotten. Time collapsed.

I was reciting my NI number, shaping consonants with care, when his name slipped out to anchor a letter. I never use that name. Yet there it was, suspended between us, proof of his presence.

Recognition flashed. For a heartbeat I heard the boy I once longed for, then the man emerged, bending words into a lie. He claimed I had failed the test, that I must call again, as if the truth of me were too sharp to bear.

The line crackled, the lie broke, the call ended.

So I called again. A new agent answered, the numbers went through, and the account was closed. The debt erased on paper, and in memory.

Now I live free of both. The ghost has no voice.