Living in Your Echo

CW: References to addiction/recovery behavior.

By 2:17 a.m., the hotel is quiet enough for me to hear my own bad decisions.

The ice machine groans in the hallway.

The elevator hums.

But here at the front desk, under the soft yellow glow of the lobby lamps, the loudest thing in the building is my brain replaying the same three seconds of an old video: Lena laughing, turning away from the camera, her hair in that messy bun, saying, “Stop filming me, Charlene, I look like trash.”

She never looked like trash. She looked like the exact problem I still have at twenty-nine years old.

I’m supposed to be doing my rounds—checking the side doors, logging the quiet hours—but my phone is face-up on the desk, screen lit, thumb hovering.

I’ve already opened her Instagram three times since midnight.

I’ve scrolled far enough to be back to last year’s birthday dinner that I wasn’t invited to.

There’s a name for this. Addiction, obsession, attachment.

Whatever you want to call it, it has my sleeping schedule and my dignity.

I refresh again, like something new might appear in the last eighteen seconds.

Nothing.

The lobby doors slide open with a soft sigh. I startle, almost dropping my phone.

A guy in a rumpled suit walks in, rolling a carry-on behind him.

“Welcome, good morning,” I say, my voice landing in that weird space between night and day. “Checking in?”

He nods, gives his name and credit card, signs, and takes the key card.

“Elevator’s to your left,” I say. “Breakfast starts at six.”

“Thanks,” he murmurs, already walking.

At 3:01 a.m., the computer chimes with the hourly log reminder.

I type: “Lobby quiet. All entrances secure. No incidents.”

I don’t type: “Still in love with someone who blocked my number three months ago.”

I open Lena’s profile again.

Her latest photo is from three days ago.

She’s at a rooftop bar, city lights behind her, a pink drink in her hand.

There’s a girl next to her whose face is half-cropped out.

I know from earlier stalking that the girl’s name is Dani.

There are photos of the two of them at the farmers’ market, a concert, a hike, all in the last few months.

Under the photo, the caption reads: “Graveyard shift girls who still find a way to go out.” Black heart, moon emoji.

“Oh,” I say, because of course.

We used to joke that the world belonged to people like us—people who worked when everyone else slept.

I worked the hotel desk.

She was a nurse on nights at the hospital down the road.

I remember the first time she fell asleep sitting up on the lobby couch, leaning against my shoulder.

I could hear her breathing.

I could hear everything.

I thought: This is it. This is my person.

She wasn’t.

But my body hasn’t gotten the memo.

I zoom in on the photo, looking for small signs to torture myself with.

Her hair is shorter now.

Her lipstick is darker.

She looks…happy.

“She’s allowed to be happy,” I say, out loud.

The automatic doors hiss.

I nearly drop the phone again.

This time, it’s not a business traveler.

It’s an older woman in a hotel bathrobe and fuzzy socks, hugging herself against the surprise of cold air.

“Sorry,” she says, catching my eye.

“I couldn’t sleep. I hope it’s okay if I sit down here a bit.”

“Of course,” I say, standing like I’m about to check her in all over again.

“You’re more than welcome. Would you like some tea? We’ve got chamomile, peppermint, decaf coffee.”

She smiles. Her hair is silver, pulled into a loose bun. She has the kind of face that collapses easily into smile lines.

“Chamomile would be lovely, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” I say, grateful for a task that isn’t doom-scrolling.

In the small staff kitchen behind the desk, I put water in a paper cup and stick it under the hot water dispenser.

When I come back, she’s sitting in one of the lobby chairs by the window, looking out at the empty parking lot like it’s a view.

“Here you go,” I say, handing her the tea.

“Thank you, dear.” She wraps both hands around the cup.

The sleeve of her robe falls back a little, revealing a thin gold bracelet and a simple, worn wedding ring.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask, then wince. “Sorry, that’s obvious. I mean—uh—you okay?”

She laughs softly. “No, it’s a fair question. I’m fine. Just not used to sleeping alone in hotels.”

She looks at the ring, touching it with her thumb. “Old habits.”

I just nod.

“I’m Charlene,” I offer. “I’m on the overnight front desk. If you need anything.”

“Margaret,” she says. “Nice to meet you, Charlene-on-the-overnight-front-desk.”

For a while, we sit in silence.

Me behind the desk, her in the armchair.

The muted TV in the corner runs infomercials with big promises I can’t afford.

Margaret breaks the quiet first.

“Do you like it?” she asks.

I look up. “Like what?”

“The night shift.”

“I used to,” I say. “It felt like the world got cheaper after midnight. Like everyone took off their serious faces.”

“And now?” she asks.

“Now it’s just when I do my worst thinking.”

She smiles like she understands too much. “Ah,” she says. “The three-a.m. brain. The most dangerous organ in the body.”

I snort. “Exactly.”

She takes a careful sip of tea. “There was a time when I did my worst thinking in the middle of the night too,” she says. “My husband worked nights at the factory when we were first married. I’d lie awake and imagine every way a machine could break, every call I might get. When he switched to days, I thought it would stop. It just…changed shape.”

“Yeah?” I ask. “What did it turn into?”

She looks down at her hands. “After he died, I started calling his voicemail. Every night. I knew what it would say. I was the one who recorded the message. But I’d call anyway, just to hear his voice.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because it’s the only thing I have.

She nods. “Grief is funny,” she says. “People think it’s only crying and missing. But there’s also this pull. This urge to repeat things. Open the same drawer. Hit the same button on the phone. Like if you just do it one more time, you’ll break through the wall of ‘gone.’”

I swallow hard. My own phone is a small, black weight on the desk.

“Did it help?” I ask. “Calling his voicemail?”

“It helped until it didn’t,” she says. “At first, it made me feel close to him. Then, after a while, it kept me from feeling close to anything else. My daughter finally said, ‘Mom, you talk to the voicemail more than you talk to me.’”

She gives a short, rueful laugh. “That’s when I realized I wasn’t just grieving. I was addicted to a version of him I could control. I could call, hang up, call again. He never disagreed. He never changed.”

I look at my phone again. At how many times tonight I’ve hit refresh, like a lab rat pressing a lever for a treat.

“Did you stop?” I ask.

She nods. “Not all at once. I told myself I could only call on Sundays. Then only on the first Sunday of the month. Then only on his birthday.” She smiles. “And then one day I forgot. That scared me, but in a good way.”

“Is it still there?” I ask. “The voicemail?”

She shakes her head. “No. I finally erased it. I saved it on a little recorder first, just in case, and then I deleted it from the phone. My hand was shaking so hard I almost dropped the thing. It felt like pushing him off a cliff.” She lets out a breath. “But when I woke up the next morning, the sky was still there. The toaster still worked. My heart was still beating.”

We’re quiet again. The ice machine coughs, spits out cubes no one will use.

“You’re young,” she says after a minute. “You probably have a different version of that. Social media, maybe.” She glances at my phone, then at me, gentle but direct. “Someone you check on.”

My face heats. For a second, I think about lying again.

“Yeah,” I say. My voice cracks a little. “My ex.”

“Ah,” she says. “That one.”

“She told me not to contact her anymore,” I say. “She blocked me. Which, I get it, I do. We weren’t good at the end. We weren’t good for a while before the end. But I still…” I gesture helplessly toward my phone. “I look. All the time. I try to pretend it’s just curiosity, but it’s not. It’s like you said, it’s…pressing a button.”

“What are you hoping will happen when you press it?” she asks.

“I keep hoping I’ll see something that hurts less,” I say. “Or something that proves she misses me. Or something that proves I didn’t mess everything up as badly as I think I did.”

“And do you?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Just rooftop bars and new friends and new hair.”

“And every picture is another little cut,” she says.

“Yeah,” I whisper.

She leans back in the chair, eyes kind. “Losing someone you love is a kind of death,” she says. “Even when they’re still alive. Especially when they’re still alive, maybe. You can’t bury them. You just keep running into them in two-inch squares on a screen.”

My throat feels tight.

“People tell you to ‘move on,’” she continues. “As if love were a piece of furniture you could drag into the next room. They don’t tell you that sometimes you have to treat your own heart like it’s in recovery. That sometimes you’re not just sad. You’re hooked.”

“I know it’s bad,” I say. “I’ve tried to stop. I delete the app and then reinstall it. I say I’ll only check once a day, and then it’s three times an hour.”

“Have you ever considered blocking her?” she asks.

The idea hits me like a glass of cold water. I laugh, startled.

“She blocked me,” I say. “That’s kind of the whole thing.”

“That’s about what you send to her,” Margaret says gently. “I’m talking about what you allow in. You can’t control if she wants distance. But you can control whether you keep dragging her into your nights.”

“I don’t want to hate her,” I say. “Blocking feels like—giving up.”

She studies me. “Did she love you?”

“I think so,” I say. “Once. Yes.”

“And do you think she would want you up at three in the morning, punishing yourself?”

I picture Lena asleep somewhere, alarm set for another night shift, not thinking about me at all.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Margaret takes another sip of tea. “When I finally erased my husband’s voicemail,” she says, “I told him out loud, ‘I love you, but I cannot keep living in your echo.’ Maybe you need your own version of that. Not for her—for you.”

There are a lot of slogans taped to the inside of the front desk: “The Guest Is Always Right.” “Smile, You’re the First Impression!” None of them have ever sounded as true as Margaret’s simple sentence.

I cannot keep living in your echo.

My phone vibrates again, as if on cue. Another notification. Another tiny pull.

Without thinking too hard, I pick it up. My thumb hovers over the Instagram app. From here, Lena’s face is just a colored circle. A portal.

“Will you watch me?” I hear myself ask.

Margaret lifts one eyebrow. “If you’d like,” she says.

My heart thumps. I feel nauseous, shaky, exposed.

I open the app.

Her profile loads. Same picture. Same bio: RN, cat mom, lover of noodles and night shifts. Same grid of memories I was not invited to.

I click on the three dots in the top corner. A list appears: Report… Block… Restrict…

My thumb trembles over the word Block.

This is ridiculous, I think. It’s just an app. It’s just a button. But it feels like standing at the edge of something high.

I think about the person I’ve been on nights for the last three months. A woman whose first instinct when the lobby empties is not to rest or write, but to hurt herself with small, glowing images.

I think about Lena, probably asleep before another brutal shift, probably not thinking about me at all. I think about Margaret, calling a voicemail again and again until it turned into a wall instead of a bridge.

I press Block.

A little window pops up: Are you sure you want to block this user? They will no longer be able to find your profile…

It makes me laugh. Like she’s been trying to find me.

I press Yes.

The screen blinks, and then she’s gone. The feed refreshes with a different mix of faces—friends, artists, strangers baking bread at midnight.

My stomach flips.

“That’s it?” I say, half disappointed, half terrified. “That’s all?”

Margaret smiles. “Sometimes the biggest things don’t come with fireworks,” she says. “Just a different kind of silence.”

I lock my phone. The screen goes black. For the first time in a long time, I feel an absence that isn’t her. It’s the absence of the option to look.

“It’ll take a while,” she says softly. “You’ll reach for it, like you used to reach for a light switch in a room you’ve moved out of. But every time your hand lands on empty air, your body learns the map again.”

I nod. My chest feels tight, but also…roomier, somehow.

“Thank you,” I say. “For telling me about the voicemail. For—well, for being here at three in the morning, I guess.”

She laughs. “We all find our teachers in strange places,” she says.

“Mine have often been bored young people working overnight jobs.”

A chime sounds from the computer. New email. A guest requesting late checkout. Routine life still happening.

Margaret stands, adjusting her robe. “I’ll try sleeping again,” she says. “The tea helped. Or maybe it was confessing my darkest habit to a stranger at the front desk.”

“Anytime,” I say, and I mean it.

She starts toward the elevator, then pauses.

“For what it’s worth,” she says, turning back, “love isn’t the problem. You loved someone. That’s good. The problem is when we use love as a reason to keep hurting ourselves. You don’t owe anyone that. Not even the best memory.”

I swallow hard. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“Try to sleep after your shift,” she says. “Daylight makes everything look different.”

She disappears into the elevator. The doors close with a soft ding.

The rest of the night doesn’t magically transform. It’s still a hotel lobby. I still have to refill the coffee, answer the phone, print out folios for early checkouts.

Every time my hand drifts toward my phone, there’s that split second where my muscle memory reaches for the old route: thumb, swipe, tap, her face.

Every time, there’s nothing there to land on. It stings. It also forces me to pause, to ask: Okay, then what?

At 6:45 a.m., I step outside for my last round. The sky is starting to lighten, a pale blue smudge over the strip mall across the street.

The air smells like cold asphalt and the faint sweetness of the bakery two blocks over.

Cars begin to appear, one by one. People on their way to lives that don’t begin at night.

I lean against the brick wall and let the morning breeze cool my face.

My love for Lena is still there. It didn’t vanish because I pushed a button. My chest still aches when I think about her. My brain still plays the highlight reel: her laugh, her hands, the way she fell asleep on my shoulder at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday two years ago.

But tonight—this morning—I did one small thing that was not about staying stuck. I made a choice that future-me might thank me for, even if present-me wants to grab my phone and scream at the void.

Maybe that’s what recovery looks like. Not a grand gesture. Not a new person. Just a series of tiny, stubborn choices in fluorescent-lit rooms at stupid hours.

I clock out at seven. The day shift clerk, Jaz, breezes in with iced coffee and gossip, asking, “How was your night?”

“Quiet,” I say, then reconsider. “Kind of loud in my head. Better now.”

She laughs, not asking what I mean, and that’s okay.

On the bus ride home, my phone stays in my bag. I watch the city wake up instead—the kids with too-big backpacks, the dog walkers, the old man in the same corner booth of the diner, reading the paper like time hasn’t moved in thirty years.

My eyes sting with tiredness. My body hums with that graveyard-shift buzz that never fully goes away. But under all of that, there’s a small, steady sense of something else.

Not hope, exactly. Not yet.

More like the feeling of an echo fading.

The world doesn’t owe me a reward for blocking one account. There will be nights when I’ll search her name in other ways, when my brain will ache for the old loop.

But tonight, when the rest of the world slept and the hotel hummed and Margaret’s tea steamed in a paper cup, I let one version of her go.

The sky is brighter now. The bus turns onto my street. I rest my head against the window, eyes closing, letting the sunlight hit my face.

For the first time in a long time, I think: Maybe the graveyard shift isn’t just where things die. Maybe it’s also where you learn how to let them.