The apartment still smells like her lavender shampoo, three months after the accident. I’ve stopped opening windows—partly because October in Prague is brutal, but mostly because I’m terrified the scent will disappear entirely.
Maya’s belongings remain exactly where she left them: vintage band t-shirts draped over the velvet armchair, half-finished oil paintings propped against the brick walls, and that ridiculous collection of ceramic frogs arranged on the kitchen windowsill. The landlord keeps texting about clearing out her things, but I can’t bring myself to box up a life that still feels so present.
Especially when she keeps rearranging the frogs.
It started small—one frog facing a different direction, another moved two inches to the left. I blamed my sleep-deprived imagination at first. Grief does strange things to perception. But yesterday morning, all seventeen frogs were arranged in a perfect heart shape, and I know I didn’t do that.
I pour my third cup of coffee and stare at today’s configuration: the frogs now spell out “HI” in wonky ceramic letters. My hands shake as I set down the mug.
“Maya?” The word cracks in the empty kitchen. “If that’s really you, could you maybe… I don’t know, knock twice?”
Silence. Then, distinctly, two soft taps against the window glass.
I laugh, which immediately turns into sobbing, which somehow circles back to laughing again. This is either a complete psychological break or the most Maya thing that could possibly happen. She always did have a flair for the dramatic.
That evening, I sit cross-legged on my bed with a notebook and pen, feeling simultaneously ridiculous and hopeful. If Maya can communicate through amphibian pottery, maybe she can read too.
*Dear Maya,* I write. *I should have told you this when you were alive, but I was too much of a coward. I’ve been in love with you since the day you moved in and immediately reorganized our spice rack alphabetically. You said chaos gave you anxiety, and I thought that was the most endearing thing I’d ever heard.*
I leave the letter on the kitchen counter beside the frogs and go to bed.
Morning brings a new message: the frogs now form an arrow pointing directly at my bedroom door. Underneath them, Maya’s favorite lipstick—the deep red one she called “Vampire Chic”—lies uncapped beside a mirror. In the reflection, written in that same red shade, are the words: *Keep writing.*
So I do.
*Dear Maya,* letter two begins. *Remember the night we got snowed in and binged horror movies until 4 AM? You fell asleep with your head on my shoulder, and I stayed frozen in that position for three hours because I didn’t want the moment to end. You were wearing those ridiculous Halloween pajamas with the dancing skeletons.*
The next morning: frogs arranged like dancers, and Maya’s Halloween playlist queued up on the bluetooth speaker, playing softly.
*Dear Maya,* I write in letter three. *I’m sorry I never kissed you. There were so many almost-moments—that time we got caught in the rain outside the farmers market, or when you got that promotion and we celebrated with wine on the fire escape. I kept talking myself out of it, convinced I was misreading the signs.*
This time, Maya’s response appears in the bathroom mirror, written in steam from my shower: *You weren’t.*
Letters four, five, and six spill out of me like water through a broken dam. Years of swallowed words and sideways glances, every small moment of tenderness I’d been too afraid to acknowledge. How Maya’s laugh could lift my worst moods. The way she hummed while cooking breakfast on Sunday mornings. How she always remembered to buy the expensive coffee I liked but never let myself splurge on.
The frog messages become increasingly elaborate. Maya arranges them into flowers, constellations, even a tiny replica of our apartment layout. She leaves other signs too—books fallen open to meaningful passages, photos moved to prominent positions, her favorite mug appearing clean in the dish rack each morning despite never being dirty.
*Dear Maya,* I write in letter seven. *I know you can’t stay forever. Ghosts in movies always have unfinished business, and maybe I was yours. But I need you to know that loving you—even silently, even imperfectly—was the best thing I ever did. You made me want to be braver.*
The response comes not through frogs but through Maya herself.
I wake at 3 AM to find her sitting on the edge of my bed, translucent but unmistakably real. She looks exactly as she did the morning of the accident—hair in a messy bun, wearing the oversized sweater she stole from her ex-boyfriend and never returned.
“Hi,” she says, and her voice sounds like it’s traveling through water.
“Hi.” I sit up slowly, afraid sudden movements might shatter this moment. “Are you okay? I mean, obviously you’re not okay, you’re dead, but—”
“I’m okay.” Maya’s smile is soft, tinged with sadness. “Better now.”
“How long can you…?”
“Not long. The sun’s coming up soon.” She gestures toward the window, where the first hints of dawn are creeping across the sky. “I wanted to tell you in person. I loved you too. I was just as scared.”
“Maya—”
“Write one more letter,” she interrupts gently. “For both of us. Something about the future instead of the past.”
When I wake again, she’s gone, but the scent of lavender is stronger than ever.
*Dear Maya,* I write in letter eight. *Thank you for teaching me that love doesn’t end with death—it just transforms. I’m going to be brave now, the way you always were. I’m going to travel to all those places we talked about visiting together. I’m going to finish the novel I started and never showed anyone. I’m going to let people love me without apologizing for taking up space.*
*I’m going to carry you with me everywhere I go, not as grief but as joy. Every sunset we’ll never watch together, I’ll watch for both of us.*
I place the final letter beside the ceramic frogs, which have arranged themselves in a perfect circle—a completion, an ending, a beginning.
The next morning, they’re just frogs again, facing random directions like ordinary objects do. Maya’s scent has faded to the faintest whisper, mixing with coffee and October air streaming through the finally-opened windows.
But on my nightstand, I find a photo I’ve never seen before: Maya and me at last year’s Christmas market, hot chocolate steaming between us, both of us mid-laugh at some long-forgotten joke. We’re looking at each other instead of the camera, and the love in our faces is unmistakable.
On the back, in Maya’s handwriting: *For your wallet. Love, your favorite ghost.*
I tuck it carefully into my purse and start planning my first solo trip to Vienna, where Maya always wanted to see the Christmas markets. I have stories to write and worlds to explore, carrying her laughter with me like a compass pointing toward possibility.
The frogs watch benignly from their windowsill, ordinary and still, keeping their ceramic secrets.
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