Wrong Number

Chapter 9

After two whole days of radio silence I finally get a message notification from the contact Yodel. It's three in the morning in the middle of the week on a day I have early classes and I wake with a whistle of my phone.

I groan and curse myself for forgetting to turn on the do not disturb feature knowing damn well it wasn't an accident. I shouldn't even bother opening the message, I should ignore it and sleep. Yet, I still find myself reaching for the godforsaken thing, at three in the morning in the middle of the week on a day I have early classes.

It's nothing but a - very gorgeous - sunset. Radio silence for two days and this. This is what I get. A picture of a sunset at three in the god damn morning. No context. Nothing. Not even a 'look at this sunset' or 'by the way I'm alive check out this sunset'. Zip. Nil. Nada. Nothing.

Nothing but a sunset.

I start to type out various things; Look who decided to text back - too passive aggressive, glad to see you're not dead - not passive aggressive enough, nice - could be mistaken for genuine interest, 👍 - far more than he's given me these past two days.

So I don't text anything back. I leave the reply space empty, push the home button and click it locked. He hasn't replied to one of my many texts so he can survive without one reply from me. Because this is basically middle school and yes I'm totally aware how petty it all is.

The thing is, I wouldn't even mind if we didn't talk for two days. We're both busy people whatever, we don't have to speak every day all the time 24/7.

There's even days we do go without speaking but this isn't that. This isn't that because on those days neither of us text the other. It isn't like on those days he texts me and I just don't respond. And if he is busy he'll usually let me know and vice versa.

This is just him flat out ignoring me for reasons I'm assuming are about this drunk phone call I apparently had with him.

I've been mulling it over in my head for the past two days. Trying to figure out if the two are connected in some way. When I came to the conclusion they must be I then started racking my brain and trying to remember anything from that night that wasn't us at Joe's.

Its obviously not gone in my favor since I'm still up at three in the morning staring at my ceiling and getting a headache trying to come up with something.

I sigh and turn over, grabbing my phone and going through my different social medias.

It's been half an hour by the time I switch over to Twitter, about to click on my friend Kail's newest reply to a tweet one of her band guys made when my phone starts ringing in my hand.

It startles me, a small gasp escaping my lips as the caller ID flashes across my screen and the accept or decline options are popping up. I know which I want to click, which I probably should click since it's so late and the only time I actually get calls from him is because he's absolutely drunk.

Still, I click accept.

"Hello?" I hold the phone to my ear and hear distant hollering and laughing.

I can hear him talking to someone. One of his friends I presume. He sounds happy and light and so incredibly drunk. There's some going back and forth, half of it I can't even make out with the way his accent sounds so much more thicker and slurred but there's a moment.

One so breathtaking and blissful I can't help but smile at it. It's his laugh. One so adorably goofy that it has to be completely genuine. It's the kind that probably has a matching smile taking over his face right about now.