Side A

He found it at the bottom of a box of old university notes. An audio cassette. Cheap clear plastic, a paper insert streaked with faded violet ink. Her handwriting. Tilted slightly left, with a tiny heart instead of the dot over the “i” in “Nothing.”

He hadn’t seen that cassette in twenty years. He thought he’d thrown it away. Or lost it. Most likely, he just wanted it to be lost.

The insert only held the track list. “Side A.” No names. No dates. None were needed. He remembered everything. Remembered her recording the mixtape while sitting cross-legged on his floor, focus narrowed to the “Rec” and “Pause” buttons on a battered stereo. Every song was a message. A promise. A confession.

He turned the cassette over in his hands. It was light, almost weightless. Strange how something so small can hold so much hurt. He spun one of the reels with his thumb; the tape slackened and crept along.

All these years he had learned to skirt that memory. The way you circle a dangerous, half-collapsed house. He knew it stood there in the dark, but he never went close. Never peered through the windows. Too many drafts. Too many ghosts.

And now he was holding the key to the front door.

He looked around his quiet, empty apartment. He owned nothing that could play it. He let out a wry smile. Time itself had made sure certain doors stayed shut. He could have dropped the cassette back into the box, left it buried for another twenty years. That would have been the sensible move.

Instead he pulled on a jacket, slid the tape into his pocket, and stepped outside.

He found one in a thrift store across town, wedged between dusty VCRs and old radios. A small, scuffed cassette player. Walkman. He bought it without testing, along with a pair of equally ancient batteries.

Back home he kept the lights off. Sank into the chair by the window. Slipped in the batteries, heard the tiny motor hum alive. Popped the player’s lid. A soft click. He fed the cassette into place, and the plastic door shut with a muffled, final sound. He pulled on the headphones.

His fingers trembled before the “Play” button. He pressed it.

First came the serpentine hiss of tape. Then the wobbly, slightly warping piano. Track one. That track.

And the ache returned.

But it was a different ache. Not the raw teenage blade that once sliced him open. That pain screamed. This one stayed silent. It wasn’t a wound. It was a scar. It didn’t hurt-it simply existed. A reminder that something had lived here once. Something so real that, when it died, it left behind a permanent phantom echo.

The songs kept coming. One surrendering to the next. He sat motionless, watching the city lights. He didn’t cry. He just listened. He let the ghosts enter. They drifted through the room, settled beside him, studied him with her eyes. And for the first time he didn’t chase them away.

The cassette reached the end, the mechanism clicked, and hiss flooded the headphones-the sound of a road walked to its finish. He stayed there another breath, then slowly, afraid to scatter whatever mattered, lifted the headphones off.

Silence filled the room. But it was a different silence. Thick. Calm. Alive.

The ache didn’t leave. It simply stopped shouting. It settled inside him like a heavy, smooth stone resting on the riverbed.

And in that new, honest quiet he finally heard it. Not the music. Not the past.

Himself.