Although her little inability to be decisive about her feelings towards her relationship was unsettling, the next few weeks still drifted by like mist over a sleeping lake.
No ripples. No storms. Just calm. Still. Imaginary.
It was the kind of quiet I'd grown to love. The kind that didn't need fixing.
And in that quiet, our world—our little make-believe connection—thrived.
No faces. No physical presence.
Just our thoughts, our jokes, our occasional silence.
I used to call it "our imaginary lives."
It wasn't out of sarcasm, not entirely.
There was something oddly comforting in that phrase.
Because that's all we really had, it was something intangible, something only the two of us could see.
Our bond didn't exist in the physical world.
No photos.
No memories carved into wood or stitched into old shirts.
Nothing tactile.
Just…
A smartphone.
Just one thief and everything would disappear.
Just one clumsy drop, and our connection would vanish like a soap bubble.
Sometimes I thought about that.
What if her phone crashed? What if mine did?
Would we even bother trying to reconnect?
Would we search? Or would we accept that it was over, that the magic faded with the last "seen" message?
That thought made me more nervous than I'd like to admit.
But we kept going, night after night, like wandering ghosts meeting at the edge of the internet.
Until, one day—two months in—came her birthday.
Now, a birthday shouldn't have meant much.
Not to me.
Not to her either, from what I gathered.
She wasn't the flashy type. She never hinted at a party, or cake, or anything over the top.
She barely even mentioned it until the night before.
Still, I knew.
Facebook made sure I knew.
I saw her timeline that morning.
Overflowing with birthday wishes.
"Happy birthday, beautiful!"
"Have an amazing day, love!"
"Wishing you all the best!"
"I pray you find joy and peace and all the chocolate cake your heart desires!"
God, it made me cringe.
Not because I didn't like seeing people care about her.
But because I knew most of them didn't.
Not really.
There's something revolting about social media love.
It's loud, performative, and short-lived.
A dozen people could write paragraphs, tag her in cheesy birthday graphics, and forget her name the next day.
And she—she would say thank you.
Because that's what people do.
Even when the attention feels empty.
"What's a birthday anyway?" I scoffed, tossing my phone aside.
"The cursed day you arrived in this cursed world. Big deal."
But a strange part of me lingered.
A part I rarely listened to.
A quiet voice whispered something I wasn't ready to hear:
"What gift best suits a daughter on her birthday?"
Daughter.
That word again.
The word I used for her in moments of subconscious softness.
I imagined handing her a necklace, maybe. Or a bracelet. Something delicate.
But I stopped myself.
I hated the thought.
It felt... low. Pathetic. Sentimental.
And I didn't do sentiment.
Birthdays were nothing but another rotation of the planet.
Hell, I didn't even celebrate mine. I knew the date...somewhere in my head
...but the day would arrive and leave unnoticed.
The only exception was Christmas. Not because of Jesus or tradition.
Because of chicken.
To me, birthdays were just marketing.
A societal guilt-trip designed to sell balloons and emotional debt.
So yeah,I didn't care.
And she said she didn't care either.
But that night...
Things changed.
We met online again, like always.
The hour was late. The world around us asleep.
And as usual, she said:
"Hey you."
I replied,
"You don't sound like a birthday girl."
She sent a laughing emoji.
"It wasn't much. Slept through half of it."
We went quiet for a second.
And then I decided to do something strange.
Something I never did for anyone.
Because I wasn't anyone's singer.
Even though I had the voice. Even though music came easy.
I opened my mouth...
And gave her a song.
Not some deep, rare piece from my soul.
Just a classic. One I knew by heart.
Bruno Mars.
"Just The Way You Are."
I sang through the mic on the app, voice low, unbothered, leaning into the lyrics like I didn't care—because I didn't want her to hear how much I might.
> "Her eyes, her eyes...
Make the stars look like they're not shinin'..."
"Her hair, her hair...
Falls perfectly without her tryin'..."
You're absolutely right—thank you for catching that. Let's finish the chapter properly and give it the ending it deserves, including that final goodnight dialogue you asked for. I'll continue right from where the song began, and carry it through to a natural and emotionally grounded close.
---
> "Her eyes, her eyes...
Make the stars look like they're not shinin'..."
"Her hair, her hair...
Falls perfectly without her tryin'..."
My voice wasn't flawless. I wasn't trying to impress anyone.
But I meant every note.
She didn't say anything at first.
I imagined her laying there, staring at the ceiling, phone to her ear, caught between smiling and pretending she wasn't.
> "When I see your face...
There's not a thing that I would change...
'Cause you're amazing...
Just the way you are..."
I let the last word hang in the air.
It lingered for a moment longer than it should have.
Then—
She said...
"your voice is amazing, thank you "
I laughed, soft and short.
"just try not to go soft on me."
"No, seriously... It was nice"
She tried to make it sound casual, like it didn't matter.
But there was something in her voice, something small and quiet
That made me pause.
It did matter.
Even if just a little.
"Well, now I'll like to remind you, don't fall for me, I know I'm handsome and all but it's bad for your health" I said.
Another pause.
"You didn't even wish me a happy birthday."
She was right. I hadn't.
"Didn't think you needed me to," I said.
"You already got, like, fifty from people who barely know your favorite color."
She laughed again.
This time, softer.
And I could hear her shift in bed, the way her sheets rustled like quiet waves.
"You're really something you know that right??"
"Yeah," I replied. "But I'm a jerk."
Another beat.
"You know," she said, her voice dropping into that tone she only used late at night, when the world was too tired to pretend—
"Even if we never meet… I think I'll always remember this."
I didn't know how to respond to that.
So I said the only thing that felt right:
"Happy birthday, kiddo."
And she replied with a whisper:
"Goodnight sir "
"Goodnight."
Click.
And the night was still again.
Not imaginary this time.
Real.
And in that stillness, I realized something.
Sometimes the best gifts don't come in boxes.
They echo in silence.
Linger in late-night calls.
And live forever in places no one else can see.
---