one thing sierra didn't need was more stress. she was in her fourth year of nursing school, already active in the hospital and about four months out for graduation—the last thing she needed was a distraction.
so why is her ex boyfriend calling her at 4pm on a tuesday? she has no clue.
sierra is a smart girl, and for the past six months she's been coming up with smart ways to ignore her ex man successfully. they've all worked, since she hasn't thought about him in depth, in a few weeks. that's pretty successful in her book. all the walls she's built up around herself because of him have shielded her from any more disappointment or hurt from anyone that wasn't herself.
so why does she feel those exact walls start to crumble, the ones built for protection, when she hasn't even picked up the phone. again, she doesn't have an answer.
time seems to stand still as she watches her phone buzz wildly on the desk. the buzzing is taunting, almost. the caller ID, saved under 'do not answer' daring her to do exactly that, to have all of the hard work she'd put it to forget about him, go completely down the drain.
so she lets it ring. there's an ache deep in her chest that wants to answer it, that wants to hear that deep rumble of her voice that can make her oh-so weak in just an instant. but she knows she has to be strong, for the sake of her well-being. and because she knows that if she answers that phone, she'll fall deep, and is afraid that she won't ever be able to pull herself out of it.
so she lets it ring, and when it finally stops, she braces herself for something.
she sits there for five minutes—waiting—for anything else to follow, but nothing happens. an inkling of disappointment bubbles in her chest, and she ignores it and forces herself to go back to focusing on her assignment, back to pretending like he never even existed.
-
it is excruciating.
the itch to call him back is stronger than ever, and when the clock strikes 8pm, sierra is dialing the number back.
the phone burns a hole on the side of her face as she waits for the sound of him picking up. the trill feels like it's mocking her, laughing at her for being so naive and stupid, once again. she's been here before—more than once—and she swore she would never do it again. at least the two of them had breaking promises in common.
sierra almost doesn't believe it when the trolling stops and the robotic voice doesn't tell her to leave a message, and instead jack is saying, "hello?" into the phone. blood pounds in her ears and knots form in her stomach. this cannot be real. "sierra?"
"what?" she whispers, almost inaudibly, but he hears her. her voice feels hoarse and thick, the lump that has now formed in her throat making it hard to swallow and hard to think.
"hey," jack says, at a loss for words. she actually called him back. he never expected that, if he's being honest. given her retweets on twitter, he half expected her to cuss him out via text and then block his number—he wouldn't have been surprised if she did. her twitter is evidence that she's turned to ice. and it's all because of him.
"what do you want, jack?" she asks, her voice firm, yet quiet. the lump is still there.
"i just wanted to talk to you, si," he says.
"don't. do not call me that."
"i'm sorry."
"you always are," she didn't mean to say it, but it slipped anyway. but it was true. if there was one thing about jack, it was that he was always sorry. missed dates: sorry. forgotten birthdays: sorry. he was always sorry, it was starting to look fake.
