It had been 49 days since you died.

Astrid Deetz counted them in smudged eyeliner and sleepless nights, in every quiet corner of the house where your voice no longer echoed. She didn’t cry Astrid never did that, not where anyone could see. But her grief was loud in other ways in the way she left your side of the closet untouched, in how she still poured two mugs of coffee, letting one go cold.

No one understood why she stopped painting. Why she stopped wearing color not that she wore much to begin with. They thought she was being dramatic, leaning into the goth girl aesthetic.

But they hadn’t loved you.

Not like she had.

Astrid had believed, truly believed, that someone like you warm, chaotic, with a laugh that wrapped around her ribs could never die. Not really. That maybe love was strong enough to punch through the veil of whatever came after.

So she started looking.

Not at cemeteries or churches. No, Astrid looked in mirrors that fogged at the edges, in attics thick with dust, in books bound in leather and stitched with whispers. She whispered your name at midnight. Left notes under floorboards. Lit candles shaped like hearts and hexes.

And she waited.

But you never came.

Until the night the attic door slammed shut on its own.

Astrid was sitting on the floor with one of your old sweaters bundled in her lap. It still smelled faintly like you something warm and citrusy and gone. The wind had been howling for hours, making the house groan with every gust. She was used to weirdness. Used to shadows shifting and Beetlejuice muttering in the corners of her vision. But this was different.

The air went still.

Then the light flickered.

And the old record player your favorite one, the one you said sounded like “ghosts having a good time” crackled to life. A soft melody poured out, warbled but unmistakable.

Your song.

Astrid froze. The sweater slipped from her fingers. Her breath hitched.

“No way,” she whispered.

And then the closet door creaked open.

It was slow, deliberate, and inside, written in smeared lipstick across the mirror, were three words:

“I miss you.”

Astrid’s knees gave out and she dropped to the floor, heart pounding like a trapped thing. She didn’t know whether to scream or laugh or cry. She pressed her hand to the mirror, the cold glass biting her skin.

“I miss you too,” she whispered. “Every damn day.”

Behind her, the old floorboards creaked not from the wind this time, but like someone walking. She turned slowly.

No one was there.

But the air shimmered faint, silvery. Like a breath in winter. And for the first time in 49 days, Astrid felt you.

Not just your memory. You.

She didn’t get a full vision. No spectral figure. No dramatic reappearance. Just the overwhelming sense that you were standing beside her. Watching her. Reaching back.

And maybe that was enough.

Maybe love could survive death. Not in the ways people wanted. Not with bodies and futures and mundane routines. But in music. In memories. In lipstick on mirrors and a song that wouldn’t stop playing.

Astrid curled up on the attic floor with your sweater, the record still spinning.

She closed her eyes and whispered, “Stay with me.”

And in the stillness that followed, she swore she felt fingers brushing hers.