Unavailable

His friends called him "The Ghost," but that wasn't quite right. Ghosts haunted people; Elias just occupied a space they couldn't reach. To the world, his status was a permanent gray circle:

A narrative exploring a character who is emotionally distant or physically unreachable, often dealing with themes of timing, missed connections, or self-protection. unavailable

It wasn't that he didn't care. He cared so much that the weight of an "Are you okay?" felt like a boulder he wasn't strong enough to lift. Being unavailable was his armor. If he didn't answer, he couldn't disappoint. If he stayed behind the digital veil, he remained a perfect, unmoving memory rather than a messy, struggling reality. His friends called him "The Ghost," but that

Elias looked at his phone. For the first time in a month, he didn't see the word "unavailable" as a shield. He saw it as a door he had locked from the inside. He reached out, his thumb hovering over the screen, and began to type. It wasn't that he didn't care

Since you asked for a story, I’ve written a short piece about the first interpretation below.