LOGINMy phone was still in my hand when I finally opened my conversation with Mike. His name hadn’t appeared on my screen in a long time, not because I had deleted him, but because I simply had no reason to look for him anymore. Until that night. Until everything with Tiar became too heavy for me to handle alone.
I stared at the empty message box.“Mike, can I ask you for a favor?”I read it several times before finally pressing send.A minute passed.TThe next morning, Laya arrived at the office early, exhausted after barely sleeping. The anonymous threats were still on her phone, but one name disturbed her more than anything else. Mike. She opened her laptop and tried to work, only to receive an email from an unknown sender. There was no message, only one attachment. An old document. The date was from before her relationship with Tiar had truly begun. At the bottom was Tiar’s name. Laya opened it. The document contained fragments of a conversation between Tiar and an unidentified person. Don’t tell Laya yet. She doesn’t need to know. I’ll handle it myself. Her heart sank. Tiar had been hiding something. Before she could decide what it meant, her phone buzzed. A message from Tiar appeared. Laya
That night, Laya didn’t go home. Her car stopped on a quiet roadside, the glow of a minimarket across the street casting the only light across her face.Tiar’s message was still open on her screen.I think she knows more than she’s been telling us.Kamelia.The name refused to leave her mind.Laya had always thought Kamelia was nothing more than an overly confident woman openly chasing Tiar. But the more she thought about it, the less everything felt like a coincidence.Kamelia had appeared when her relationship with Tiar was at its weakest. The photos of their closeness surfaced at exactly the right moment. Even the details surrounding that night kept finding their way back to Laya through people connected to Kamelia.She typed.What did you find?A few minutes later, Tiar replied.I checked the date of the photo Kamelia showed me.Laya immediately sat upright.And?
Laya left the café with heavy steps. Mike’s words kept replaying in her mind, especially one sentence she couldn’t shake.Find out what Tiar did.Once, words like that would have immediately made her angry at Tiar. But now, something felt different.For the first time, Laya didn’t want to blindly believe anyone.She wanted to find the truth herself.Inside her car, Laya stared blankly through the windshield, her eyes beginning to sting.“What really happened that night?”She didn’t know who she was asking.Mike?Tiar?Or herself?She still remembered the hotel.Tiar.The sudden fear.The confusion she had never been able to explain.But the harder she tried to remember, the more she felt that something had been deliberately erased from her memory.And the most painful part was realizing that, for months, she had blamed Tiar for something she
Laya remained inside her car for several minutes after reading the final message.The night you disappeared.The words kept echoing inside her head. She wanted to dismiss them, to believe it was just another misunderstanding, another meaningless piece of information. But deep down, something had already begun to crack.Because she knew the truth.She couldn’t remember everything about that night. She remembered Tiar. She remembered the hotel. She remembered the fear, the confusion, and the feeling that something had gone terribly wrong. But there were pieces missing, pieces she had never questioned because she had been too consumed by everything that happened between her and Tiar afterward.For months, she had focused on what she thought Tiar had done. She had never stopped to ask herself what had happened to her.When she finally returned to her apartment, she didn’t even bother changing her clothes. She went straight to he
Laya was still standing by the window when she heard footsteps outside her office.“Laya.”She turned and found Tiar standing there, slightly out of breath, as if he had come as quickly as he could after receiving her message.Without saying much, Laya opened the door and handed him the photograph she had received earlier.Tiar studied the picture before turning it over. His expression changed the moment he read the words on the back.“Where did you get this?” he asked.“A man gave it to me.”Tiar looked at her sharply.“What man?”“I don’t know. He left before I could ask his name.”For several seconds, neither of them spoke.Laya watched Tiar carefully. She had known him long enough to recognize when he was hiding something.“Do you know something about that night?”Tiar sighed and lowered the photograph.“After you left, I went back to the lobby because I
Laya returned to her desk and tried to focus on the computer screen. There was more than enough work waiting for her, but her mind kept drifting back to her encounter with Mike.It should have been nothing more than a coincidence. At least, that was what she wanted to believe. Yet somehow, his smile kept appearing in her thoughts. The way he had remembered her favorite drink. Hot chocolate. Such a small detail. Something even Tiar might have forgotten.Laya sighed and forced herself to concentrate. Then her phone vibrated.One notification.An unknown number.She stared at the screen for several seconds before opening it.You shouldn’t trust everyone who comes back into your life.Her heart immediately began to beat faster. She read the message again. No name. No explanation. Just one sentence that felt more like a warning than advice.Her mind immediately went to Mike.No.Laya slowly shook he







