Oliver awoke to a phone call. He didn’t know why he had a landline, but his landlord had recommended it for some godforsaken reason, and it didn’t raise his rent at all, so he agreed. His eyes fluttered open and he lay still, letting the phone ring out. Cade was already out of bed, and was probably working. Oliver liked that Cade worked so diligently. It made him more human, whatever that meant.
A moment, then the alarm next his bed went off. Good timing for a phone call. Oliver didn’t like to sleep in, but the first few weeks of the show he had almost worked himself to death trying to wake up at a normal time, so he allowed a few extra hours to stay in the land of the dreaming before admitting to the light of day. Somewhere in his apartment, his landline phone rang again. Oliver sighed, guessing that it was as good a time as any to get up.
The phone continued to ring, and he walked to check the caller ID. The name read SCHAFFER, P and he recognized the number underneath as being his parents. He scoffed and silence the ringer. The last people he wanted to have any contact with anytime soon were his parents.
He went to the shower and turned it on, then grabbed a towel and began to prepared himself. The landline rang again, but he let it go. He had never given his parents his cell phone, and they had only chanced upon his landline after calling the landlord and assuring them that they were his parents. They had tried fielding calls through Trish several times, but he had given her specific instructions to ignore or block the number if it ever came in. He wanted to distance himself from them as much as possible.
Oliver’s jacket was folded neatly on a pile on the kitchen counter, with his wallet placed on top of it next to a post it note. He picked up the note and read ‘HOPE IT WASN’T TOO MUCH OF A HASSLE, BUT I CAN’T PROMISE IT WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN -C.” Oliver grinned. There was something about these little details and nuances that really got to him. Cade was a good one.
The phone rang again, but Oliver put in headphones and called a cab. He had a show to star in.
YOU ARE READING
After Death
General FictionWhat would you do if you knew there was an afterlife? That's the question residents of Longview, Connecticut face in this tale of graduation, falling out of love, falling in love and moving on.
