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One sudden horrific moment shifts the entire trajectory of Atlas and Errol's lives, handicapping both young men in ways they could never have expected. A sculptor without his sight, and a piani...
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"Oh shit- wait sorry, hi." Errol replied through the line. He sounded discheveled, like I caught him off guard... even though he was the one who called me. "Sorry to call so late, I'm just-" Errol paused a moment as I heard some comotion around him. I couldn't tell what he was doing, but it sounded like he was moving around a lot. "Sorry we haven't spoken in a bit, I've been working on a few things for work and lost track of this week," he explained, with that excess noise slowly starting to quiet down. His voice sounded as deep as I remembered, yet with a bit more alertness than I was used to.
He actually sounded dare I say, awake?
He usually had this just woken up flair about him and the way he spoke, which I considered attributed to some of his attitude. I think the only sides to the bed he had, were the wrong sides. He managed to wake up on them pretty consistently.
There was another tone to Errol's voice. One that sounded a bit apologetic.
"I-It's okay." I sort of tripped over that answer. It was unexpected to hear any sorry's come from this guy, let alone two all in one go. "Really, I get it."
There was a low sigh that was released on the other end, like he had audibly let go of a bit of tension.
"Cool," he replied, much more relaxed now. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I bailed or anything."
At first, I was a fair amount of confused. I couldn't understand what he meant by bailing. Then I remembered the conversation Atticus supposedly had with him, and saw how that could've been a possibility. Atticus swore up and down that he was very polite during their chat, but I had my suspicions.
"Don't worry about it," I replied, doubling down on my words. "It's been a bit of a back end heavy week, so I didn't find much time to get far with the piece."
I pushed myself a little further up against my bed headboard now, realizing this call was probably going to be longer than I was anticipating.
I wasn't sure what I was even anticipating.
So far mine and Errol's encounters had been about as unexpected as possible.
"That's great!" Errol rushed out, before backtracking a bit. "I mean, back end work sounds like hell, but I'm glad I didn't miss a lot."
There was this different level of excitement to his voice when he spoke. One that unexpectedly made me smile. Call me narcissistic but it felt good to have someone this invested in my art again.
"I, uh- " I started, now the one sounding caught of guard. I let out a bit of a nervous chuckle. "I'll be at the studio tomorrow morning by 8:45 at the latest. You're welcome to stop by then."
My own words continued to suprise me on this call. I honestly couldn't tell whether I meant to offer that or not.
Atticus was right, I liked to work alone. I loved to work alone. I'd never willingly ask someone to join me, not even Atticus or Nyra regardless of how close we were.
