Traces of You

Chapter 22

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Miles sat on his bed, staring at his phone. More specifically, he was staring at a particular contact that was on his phone.

Contemplating whether or not to call her, he finally pressed on the green call button after talking himself into it. Cringing internally, he threw his arm back and looked away, fearing that he would hear the call go to voicemail.

Fortunately, that didn't happen, and Nina picked up the phone. Despite preparing himself mentally for ages, he still wasn't as prepared as he thought he was. His voice lingered and he sat upright in a flash after hearing her say 'Hello?'.

"Miles?" she repeated softly.

His mouth couldn't open. His words stammered before he thought up anything that could be considered as a sentence. "H—Hey."

"What's up?" she asked innocently.

Now that she was asking, it was the perfect opportunity just to talk about her daughter. But now, he couldn't utter a single thing. It took a lot of courage to say that he found her daughter, but it also took a more emotionally intelligent person to not fuck it up while telling her.

"You okay?" Nina asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Miles stammered. "Uh. Yeah. I'm fine. . . How are you?"

"I'm good," she said cheerily.

"That's good. . ." he said, awkwardly laughing at nothing that was funny.

"Do you need something?" she asked.

Before he could answer her, Rhys' voice came up from the background.

". . . who are you talking to?" Rhys said.

The chair creaked before he heard Nina sigh. "It's no one."

"Then show me."

He could imagine Rhys trying to take the phone off her.

"Stop it, Rhys."

"Why?"

"Because it's not important."

It was silent for a few seconds before he heard Rhys huff. "Fine".

The door slammed and a quiet static lingered behind on the phone.

He wondered if he should say something to her, but knowing that he wasn't even in the same timeline as them made him anxious. If something did happen between the two, then he would not have been able to do anything in the first place. Technically, he shouldn't even be able to have this call with her.

"You there?" Miles asked.

The phone shuffled around before he heard her sigh. "Yeah. I'm here. Sorry."

"It's fine." He took a deep breath. "Is everything okay?"

Her voice squeaked. "Yeah, everything's fine. Don't worry about it. . . Didn't you have something to tell me?"

Though he knew she was avoiding the topic, he did realise that he called her for a reason.

'Better now than never'.

"— I think I found your daughter," he said abruptly.

Of course, he was met with the initial silence. And of course, he didn't hear a reply. Though deep inside, he had a feeling she wasn't going to reply, he still had hope she would somewhat react to him. Make it out to be some sort of praise or pride for finding out who her daughter was.