Wrong Number

Chapter 14

Where my coping involved a few days to myself, Luke's coping involved the opposite. If we weren't talking on the phone we were texting. It wasn't even anything. No actual conversations. It was mainly just me ranting and talking about my day which was starting to get old.

I was running out of things to tell him. My days are boring and filled with classes and studying and having to type out long essays. It was nothing you could talk about for three hours. Which wasn't even that long for us.

One night we stayed up watching a whale documentary on Travel Channel and Luke didn't even say a single word. I was wearing thin and his lack of communication was starting to worry me some.

Late at night is usually when he gets personal stories out of me. Like the story about how I fell out of a tree once and broke my arm. Or the phase I went through in elementary school of being some boys ice cream sugar mama because I had a crush on him - this story was a personal favorite of his.

One night I even tell him about my mom and dad's divorce and how I hardly remembered much about their happiness. He wasn't a bad dad though, I told him this. He may have not gotten along with my mom much but he was always there for me which was something irreplaceable.

I tell him about the day we found out he'd been in an accident. How all I kept thinking the whole ride home after he'd been pronounced dead and we'd left the hospital was that he was going to miss my dance recital.

Even then I just get a quiet sorry from the blonde boy. I guess there really wasn't much you could say to someone after they tell you something like that. Still, I go on each day, telling him something new.

Today's different though. Today he starts the conversation.

"Your voice." He says simply as if we had been chatting the whole time.

Which wasn't case. In fact, we hadn't even said a single word to each other up until now. Not even a hello. He called, I answered, set my phone down and continued cramming for an exam.

"Hm?" I don't really hear him, far too caught up in the words on the pages I was flipping through.

"You asked me the other day why I call if I don't even say anything," he explains.

It was a sleepy question that was punctuated with a yawn a few nights ago when he had me up especially late.

"I remember," I nod, scribbling down hardly readable notes.

"I like your voice. It's soothing," he says idly.

"Thank you?" I pretend not to notice the warmth of my cheeks.

"Things just make sense when you're talking you know?"

"I mean, I am right 100% of the time." I tease.

"No. Not that. You just...I don't know," he sighs completely missing my lighthearted tone.

"Well this is the most you've spoken all week," I think out loud.

"Yeah, I uh, I guess it is," he replies.

"Does this mean you're ready to talk about it?" I ask offhanded and not completely serious because I've asked multiple times before and it gets me absolutely nowhere.

"...I keep thinking about you at a show."

It takes me a second but when his words finally hit my ears I have to actually pause everything and take a breath.

"Yeah? I thought I wouldn't be allowed at one one of your shows."

"What? Of course you'd be allowed." He sounds slightly offended that I would even think otherwise.