made of glass

two.

You don’t talk to him for four full days.

For the first day, he’s relentless. He texts you and you don’t answer him. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Please don’t hate me. He calls you and you don’t pick up. He leaves you six voicemails and they all follow the same sort of script. He apologizes endlessly and begs you to call him back -- and, still, you don’t. You find a place on the couch at your parents’ house the moment you pull into the driveway after the hour-long drive from Vancouver to Mission, hugging your knees to your chest and staring blankly at the television screen, cell phone in hand.

The second day, he calls you three times and only leaves a voicemail after the second call. The third phone call comes from an unknown number but he doesn’t hang up quickly enough and there’s a short, unintentional voicemail where you can hear the deep sigh he heaves before ending the call.

The third day, your phone doesn’t ring at all. You get two text messages -- they sound like giving up, when you read them out loud -- and you spend the day curled up in bed in the room you grew up in, watching old movies. Your mother acts like you’re fourteen instead of twenty-seven and brings you food throughout the day. It’s unnecessary and it makes you feel like a child, but you appreciate it, at least a little bit.

It’s after dinner on the fourth day when he knocks on your parents’ front door. You’re already halfway down the hallway towards the stairs so you pull the door open with a welcoming smile already in place; it slips away quickly when you find yourself face-to-face with a half-apologetic, half-hopeful Josh Ramsay.

Molding your face into an indifferent mask, you half-close the door so he can only see your face. “Hi.”

Josh puts his hands in his pockets and offers you a smile that turns out more like a nervous grimace. “Hey.” There’s a long pause in which you both just stare at each other in silence. Then, shaking his head as if to clear it, he asks, “Can we talk?”

You almost say no. The word is halfway out before you stop yourself -- because he looks nervous and that’s an emotion that rarely allows itself to be seen where Josh Ramsay is concerned. “Yeah, okay.” You slip outside; the sound of running water from the kitchen where your mother is washing dishes disappears as the door falls shut with a decisive click.

The street beyond your parents’ front porch is quiet. Despite the sun, preparing to sink below the horizon as it envelopes the neighbourhood in the last warmth of the evening, there’s a definite lack of children playing out in the open. A peal of laughter rises into the still air from a nearby backyard as you turn to face Josh, automatically crossing your arms over your chest. You look at him coolly, putting a great deal of effort into sucking every particle of emotion from your eyes.

“I called you,” says Josh, seemingly unsure of how to start a conversation with you. You know him well enough to know that he’s probably spent the past four days rehearsing what he wants to say. “And I left you a bunch of messages.”

You don’t move. He knows you well enough to know that you’ve listened to every single voicemail twice.

He shuts his eyes briefly, then stumbles on, a note of desperation in his voice now. “Look, Car -- I shouldn’t have asked about the Bieb-- the Justin thing. I was out of line. I should have known it wasn’t true.” He falters momentarily when all you do is look at him wordlessly. “Okay, I know you hate me. I just want you to know I’m sorry, okay? I was stupid, all right, I was --”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t hate you.” (Is it even possible to hate someone like him?)