George changed.
Carla doesn't know when it happened, how or even where, but he has. He's not the same man she fell in love with five years ago.
Lando's the one who noticed first, the thought whispered to her when George had plucked the wine out of...
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The text from Carla has me sat staring at the phone screen with furrowed eyebrows from the second of it's arrival. The blunt 'it's not' in response to my question on how date night was going.
What does she mean 'it's not'? Is it code for something I don't want to know about? An error at the restaurant she's been so excited to go to? Maybe that George brought along someone from work in a (what was likely an innocent) mess up?
I'm about to type out my response when Carla's name appears in big white letters over the screen. The sight making my eyes widen as I shift in my spot trying not to make my surprise too clear to the others in the multicoloured lit room. Carla is calling me.
Now?
Before anyone can object I'm rising from my seat in the corner and slipping from the room completely. The ten of them too occupied by the ongoing game of 'ring of fire' to care about my disappearance as I skirt down the hall and slip out onto the small balcony of the place. It's tiny, only enough for two people to stand, but hidden and perfect to escape the noise from the inside with boisterous shouts and pounding House music. Most importantly, it's somewhere I knew nobody would be hiding, at least not yet when. Everyone was only lightly buzzed from the alcohol being passed around, having too much fun to escape into the fresh evening air.
The call connects and the first thing I hear is a quiet sniffle and immediately my eyes are widening. "Hi?" The word leaves me unsure, almost questioning, only because I'm wondering if I've made up the sniffle on the other end of the line. I have two sisters, and still, after all of their tears and sniffles over the last 23 years I'm never quite sure how to make any of the emotions disappear. Or how to make things better. Amber and Flo always argue that I just manage to say the right thing, but it never feels like that at the time.
"Hey, I..." Carla's voice is wobbly, and filled with a crackle which doesn't come from the background of the phone. "I'm sorry for calling." Carla's voice is cutting through the speaker. There's a manic edge to her words that I haven't heard before which tells me she regrets pressing the dial. "I'm sorry. I-I should go, you're out, sorry I don't know why I-"
"Don't go." I urge her, concerned about the panicked height to her voice.
"I should go." The panicked edge is still there but her words aren't as distant, it's like she's come back to earth with the firm words from me. If she ended the call I'd only worry about her.
"What...are you okay?" I settle on first, thousands of questions swarming through my mind. The one I most want to ask being: what the hell has happened?
"I'm fine." Carla responds quickly before clearing her throat. "I'll be fine." She corrects, sniffling again, quieter this time. The certainty in her voice let's me know that she will infact be fine, it doesn't make me worry any less though. "I'm sorry." She chokes out for the third time in the first minute of our call.
