The Last Track on the B-Side

I remember the exact moment I knew I’d never hear his laugh again. It was a Tuesday, the kind of gray, drizzly Tuesday that makes you want to stay in bed, but I had a deadline. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat, and I saw my mother’s name on the screen. She never called during work hours. My hand shook as I answered, and before she could say a word, I pulled over to the shoulder, heart already pounding against my ribs. ‘Mia,’ she said, her voice cracking, ‘you need to pull over.’ I screamed, ‘What happened? Tell me!’ The words tumbled out: ‘It’s Levi. There was an accident. He’s gone.’ I didn’t recognize the sound that came out of me—a raw, animal wail that echoed off the wet asphalt. I punched the steering wheel until my knuckles bled, but the pain was nothing compared to the hollow void that had just opened in my chest.

Levi and I were attached at the hip since we were kids. Our mothers are sisters, and they lived two streets apart. We were born eleven months apart, and our families treated us like twins. We played on the same soccer team, wore matching jerseys, and as we grew older, our shared love for music became the glue that held us together. We’d spend hours in his basement, hunched over his record player, debating the merits of obscure post-punk bands and crafting mixtapes for each other. He was the only person who understood why I cried to Joy Division and danced to The Smiths. When he got his first car, a beat-up Honda Civic with a cassette player, we’d drive around the outskirts of town, blasting our favorite albums, him singing off-key and me laughing until my sides hurt.

We drifted a bit after college—life happens, jobs, relationships. But we always found our way back to each other. He’d send me voice notes of songs he’d discovered, I’d send him playlists for his commute. Even when we couldn’t talk for weeks, I knew he was there, a constant in the chaotic noise of my life. The last message I got from him was a link to a band called ‘The Hollow Hours,’ with a text: ‘You need to hear this. It’s like they crawled into my brain.’ I listened to it that night, and I was mesmerized. I replied, ‘This is our new anthem.’ He never saw my reply.

A month after the funeral, I found myself back at his apartment, helping his parents pack up his things. It was a surreal, suffocating task. The air still smelled like him—sandalwood and stale coffee. I moved through the rooms like a ghost, touching his guitar, his stack of vinyl, his half-empty notebook. Then I found it: a cassette tape on his nightstand, unlabeled, with a small stick figure drawing of a person wearing headphones. On the other side, written in his messy handwriting, were the words: ‘For Mia—Listen alone, night.’ My heart seized. I slipped it into my pocket without a word.

That night, I sat in my dark living room, the only light coming from the streetlamp outside. I popped the tape into my old boombox, the one I’d kept since high school. The tape hissed and crackled, and then a familiar voice filled the room—Levi’s voice, but not quite. It was slower, deeper, with a strange echo. He said, ‘Hey, Mia. If you’re hearing this, I guess I’m gone. But I need you to know something. There’s a place I found, a place where the music never stops. It’s not a physical place. It’s… between. I’ll show you. I left you a map. Follow the B-sides.’ A chill ran down my spine. I rewound the tape, listened again. The same words. But on the second listen, I noticed a faint melody underneath his voice—a song I didn’t recognize, haunting and dissonant.

I tore his apartment apart after that, searching for a ‘map.’ Finally, under the loose floorboard in his closet, I found an envelope. Inside was a hand-drawn map, like a treasure map, with a route that twisted through our old neighborhood, marked with X’s at odd locations—a dead tree in the park, a graffiti-covered underpass, a forgotten alley behind the record store. At the bottom, he’d written: ‘The last track on the B-side. Play it when you find it.’ I was terrified, but the pull to follow his breadcrumbs was stronger than my fear. I needed to understand.

Friday night, I drove to the first X: the dead tree in Riverside Park. It was almost midnight, and the fog rolled in thick off the river. I parked and walked to the tree, my flashlight casting shaky beams. I noticed a small metal box nailed to the trunk, hidden by a loose piece of bark. Inside was a folded piece of paper and a key. The paper said: ‘Next X: the old jukebox at the 24-hour diner.’ I hadn’t been to that diner since Levi and I used to hang out there after shows, playing the jukebox for hours. I drove there, my hands trembling.

The diner was open, but almost empty—just a tired waitress and a cook in the back. The jukebox glowed in the corner, buzzing with age. I approached it, clutching the key. I found a small keyhole on the side of the jukebox, hidden behind a sticker. The key turned, and a panel popped open. Inside was another tape, labeled ‘B-SIDE 3’ with a single track. The note attached read: ‘Play this on the jukebox, then press the blue button underneath the tone arm.’ I did as instructed. The jukebox crackled to life, but instead of a song, I heard Levi’s voice again, whispering: ‘You’re close. The next X is the bridge where we saw the Northern Lights that one time. The map says under the third pillar. Bring the key.’ I felt like I was in a trance.

The bridge was an hour away, an old railroad bridge we’d discovered as teenagers. I drove through the night, my mind racing. The fog was thicker, and the bridge loomed out of the darkness like a skeleton. I climbed down to the third pillar, cold water swirling below. There, in a metal container, was a stack of photographs. They were pictures of me—candid shots Levi had taken over the years: me laughing, me crying, me lost in thought. The last photo had an address on the back. It was the address of an abandoned music hall on the edge of town, the one that had burned down years ago. I knew what I had to do.

The music hall was a hollow shell, its roof collapsed in places, but there was a small room in the back that had survived. I entered, my footsteps echoing. On a dusty table, I found a cassette deck and a single tape, labeled ‘THE LAST TRACK.’ I inserted it, pressed play. The room filled with static, then Levi’s voice, raw and urgent: ‘Mia, I’m not dead. I mean, I died, but I’m not gone. There’s a space between worlds, where music is the only currency. I’ve been trying to reach you. This song is the portal. But you have to want it. You have to be willing to leave your life behind. If you listen to the end, you’ll be where I am. But once you cross, you can’t come back. I know it’s a lot. But I miss you. I miss our conversations. This world is cold and dark, and I’m alone. Please, Mia. Come find me.’ The song began—the same haunting melody from the first tape, but now with more layers, more depth. I stood there, tears streaming down my face, the weight of the choice pressing on me.

I thought of my boyfriend, my parents, my job—all the anchors of my life. But I also thought of Levi. The one person who truly understood me. He was out there, trapped in some musical limbo, reaching out. I couldn’t abandon him. As the final notes played, I closed my eyes and pressed the stop button. The room fell silent. The silence was suffocating. I looked at the tape, a small piece of plastic, and I knew that if I played it again, I’d be gone. I tucked it into my pocket. I walked out of the music hall, back into the fog, back to my car. I sat there for a long time, engine off, listening to the ticking of the dashboard clock.

I never went back. I finished the mixtape he made me, I listened to it over and over, trying to hear a hidden message. But the tape only played his voice, and the song, and then nothing. I’ve kept it in a box under my bed, unplayed since that night, because a part of me is terrified that if I press play again, I’ll be drawn in. But every night, I sit with my headphones on, playing music that reminds me of him, and I wonder if he’s listening too. And sometimes, in the deepest quiet of the night, I swear I hear him singing along—a faint harmony just beneath the track, waiting for me to join in.