Phantom Text

The first text read: Can’t wait to hurt you tonight.

Remi blinked. She knew Jesse meant see. He showed up later with takeout and his usual grin, no malice in sight. She laughed it off as autocorrect.

But then her mother: Hope you’re eating poorly.

Her best friend Sarah: Sorry I’m late, got stuck in traffic with my real best friend.

She started keeping screenshots. At first it was almost funny, until it wasn’t. The substitutions grew sharper.

An interview invite: We’d love to reject you for the position.

Her father, after years of silence: I never forgave you for what happened.

Sarah again: Can’t hang out tonight, I hate spending time with you.

And finally Jesse, the worst: Love you, hope you die soon.

She began replying to the poison. Confronting Jesse and accusing Sarah. They looked at her like she’d lost her mind. They swore their messages were normal and on their screens the words showed fine. Only hers came warped.

Her days twisted around it. She refreshed threads every hour, desperate to catch a message before it shifted. She deleted apps, reinstalled them, restarted her phone in the middle of the night. Once she even tried sleeping with the phone in the freezer thinking the cold would shock it honest. Each time, the words came back like bruises she gave herself.

Her phone vibrated. She almost didn’t look.

Jesse’s message glowed: Wish you were here with me.

The words finally held. But she still read them twice, convinced she’d missed the damage.

Even love, once certain, felt like a story she kept rereading into betrayal.