The Two of Us

Leave a Voicemail, Fool

Blair answered my phone for me as I parkoured over the coffee table and flung myself back onto the couch.

The volume was almost always cranked up, so I could hear Fallon's voice on the other end before Blair actually handed it to me. "Oh, uh, hey."

"Hey," I greeted. "What's up?"

"This is going to seem random, but you're like...super skilled at playing guitar, right?"

"Uh..." That was random. "I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm super—"

"She is," Blair interjected. 

"Was that Blair?"

"Yeah," I said. "She slept over at my place."

"Well, that's not surprising. Anyway, do you by any chance know how to play a seven-string guitar?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You know how Richie is in a band? Well, the guy that plays lead guitar -- his name is Barry, you met him during homecoming, I think -- he injured his hand and can't play in time for a gig that's on January seventeenth. 

"He wants the others to play without him, but it's proving kinda difficult to find someone else to play lead guitar. I was wondering if you'd be willing to do it?"

"I—, you want me to do it? Me, as in...me??" I asked rather stupidly.

"Uh-huh. Blair has talked up your skills and I know that you're into kinda intense music (which is what they play), so I figured that you'd be a good person to ask. Could you do it?"

"Uhhh..." I looked at Blair, who nodded as if encouraging me to say yes, "sure." I made sure to draw the word out for an awkward amount of time.

"Okay, great! Do you think you can drop by later? Richie's gonna have to give you the tabs or whatever they're called."

"I can. Question before you hang up, though."

"What is it?"

"Was there any particular reason that you decided to call me about this so friggin' early? I thought it was an emergency or something."

"I didn't think that you'd answer. I was just planning on leaving a voicemail so that I could tell you everything Richie told me before me I forgot."

Well, that explained why they sounded sorta surprised at first. 

"I mean, not only are you usually never up this early when we don't have school, but you also don't sleep with your hearing aids in so you can't hear your phone ringing."

"Voicemail? You could've just shot me a text or something."

"I could've, but it would've been longer than the list of things that Bon-Bon doesn't like."

"That is a long list," Blair commented. 

"Yeah... I understand your decision now. See you in a bit, Fal."

"Bye Baby. Bye Blair."

"Bye."

Fallon ended the call.

We sat in silence for a brief moment.

"...you 'talk up' my guitar skills to other people?"

"...perhaps. I'm not gonna lie, I talk about you a borderline obnoxious amount when you're not around," Blair admitted. "The fact that you're incredibly talented at playing guitar was bound to come up once or twice."

Trying to ignore the heat rising to my face, I looked back down at my phone and turned it back on to check the time again.

"I do the same thing, but only when I'm talking to my friend from Utah."

"He's the guy that Leslie and I said hi to over FaceTime, right? He did very casually expose you for doing that."

5:46 AM

"I try to repress that memory."

"Hey, look at that," Blair pulled out her own phone and pressed down on the home button, making the screen turn on, "we apparently have the exact same lockscreen."

I was indeed greeted with the exact same image that I had on my phone. It was a rather stupid picture, which...

Okay, so,

There's a big ass statue of a bear downtown. One time, Leslie told me something along the lines of, "Yo, you oughta get into its mouth."

So, of course, I did. I draped myself over its lower jaw like it had successfully killed me and Blair dropped down onto her knees, acting like she was screaming at the sky in despair while Leslie took a picture of us.

"Oh shit, we do. Good to know you agree that out of all the pictures of us together that exist, it's—"

"The best one."

"Yes. And the second-best picture is of me drawing a curly mustache on your face after you fell asleep first during the last sleepover we had with the others."

"Wait, you have a picture of that?"

"Yes, and I cropped myself out of most of it before making it your contact picture."

"I...can't even be upset at that because I used the picture of you with an ear of corn as yours."

On the last day before winter break, Freddy stuck an ear of corn in my backpack -- for some reason -- during fourth hour and I didn't notice until sixth hour. I was incredibly confused when I pulled it out.

"You have a picture of that?"

"You were looking at that corn like you had never seen corn before in your life and couldn't comprehend what it was," Blair said with a laugh edging her voice. "Absolutely adorable and hilarious. The moment needed to be captured."

"Well, I guess I can't be upset at that."