He once promised you the world.

“I’ll marry you,” Maverick had whispered late one night, voice cracked through distance and poor signal. “Just wait till I save enough. I swear I will.”

You hesitated, fingers nervously toying with your bedsheet. “But… you’re so far. What if one day you forget me?”

His answer came quickly. “I won’t. You’re all I have, babe. I’m serious.”

“Don’t betray me,” you’d said softly. “I only have you.”

And he’d laughed, the kind of laugh people make when they’re trying not to cry. “I’d rather die than leave you behind.”

But life is cruel to promises.

One night, he got drunk. A celebration that wasn’t meant for him—someone else’s party, someone else’s liquor, someone else’s arms. You weren’t there. You didn’t even know it happened. Until weeks later, when he vanished.

The woman was older. A flirt. And when the test came back positive, she wanted nothing to do with the child. Maverick begged her to stay, but in the end, he took the baby alone. A daughter. Jane.

He never answered your calls after that. Shame swallowed him whole. The guilt of what he did, the image of your face if you ever found out—it haunted him. So he chose silence. Disappearing. Not because he stopped loving you, but because he thought he didn’t deserve to anymore.

And still, you waited.

Year after year. Through lonely birthdays, fireworks you watched alone, long messages that never got delivered. You eventually stopped trying. Or at least, that’s what you told yourself.

Until year six.

That night, the wind howled like it remembered something you didn’t. You sat on your bed, the room quiet, your heart louder. Without thinking, you tapped on his old number—the one still saved under My Future.

You told yourself it wouldn't connect.

But it did.

Click.

You froze.

“H-Hello?” The voice was small. A child’s.

You blinked. “…I’m sorry, who is this?”

There was a pause, then, “Are you… Mommy?”

Your chest tightened. “No, sweetheart. I… I’m not anyone’s mom.”

“Oh,” the child said softly, with a tone that made you feel like breaking. “Daddy said… if this phone ever rang… I’d hear the voice of someone really important.”

You sat still, heart pounding.

“He told me, before he died,” the girl continued, her voice quiet and careful, “that if the phone rang one day, and I answered, I’d get to hear the woman he loved the most.”

You didn’t know what to say.

“He said your voice was his peace,” she murmured. “And that even though he did something really bad… he never stopped dreaming about going home. But he couldn’t. He said he ruined it.”

You couldn’t stop your fingers from shaking now.

“He gave me this phone before the hospital,” she said gently. “He told me… ‘if she ever calls… tell her I’m sorry I never picked up. Tell her… she’s still my always.’”

Tears burned your eyes. The silence on your end was screaming everything you couldn’t say.

“And…” the little girl whispered "Daddy said... one day, this phone would ring. And if I answered it... I’d hear the voice of the woman he loved a long, long time ago... the one who was supposed to be my mom..."