“Phone Calls”
“Thank you for being so understanding.” I was really breaking now, the tears were starting to flow.
For a second, all I heard was static. “I love you, how could I do anything else?”
Everything in me collapsed, broken down into fragments smaller than dust. But I didn’t mind. I needed to mend that bone anyway.
“I love you, too,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady. Tears were dripping like falling stars, but I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want him to know I was crying because I didn’t want to make him any sadder than he already sounded. He probably knew anyway. “God only knows how much I love you.”
And I sat on the linoleum kitchen floor, tears now running down my legs, clutching that phone burning in my hand like a lifeline. We were both silent, and I was content listening to that static, because on the other end was him. Silence had never been uncomfortable between us, and it still wasn’t. After the months of silence between us, despite the thousands of miles between us, silence was still comfortable knowing it was between us. And that was close enough.
Thunderstorms and a dying phone battery keep interrupting our conversation, so I took that as a sign and we attempted a good-bye. But we were never good at good-byes, it was the only real problem we’d ever had. So I asked if I could call him again sometime, maybe. The maybe was because I had already fallen short of promises to him before and I couldn’t bear to do it again.
Gently, he replied, “Whenever you can.”