My apprehension is growing as I wait for Jorge’s call in the early hours of the morning, I am barley awake, and my eyelids feel as though they working against the forces of gravity in an attempt to keep open, but I force myself to stay awake just to hear his voice. The voice which I have so desperately missed for weeks on end, yet I still feel such a deep sickly dread at the thought of this phone call. Finally a ring echo’s throughout the empty walls of our apartment … my apartment, and fills up the isolation, awaiting an answer.
“Tini?”, hearing him say my name cut into me like a thousand knives, I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. His voice felt distant and foreign to me, but it was as though with that one word all the memories came rushing back to me.
“Hi”, being the only response I seemed to be able to conjure up. Only seconds into the call and I wanted to burst into tears but I knew that wouldn’t help the situation in the slightest.
“Hi”. The simple exchange was filled with an awkwardness that I would have never dreamed to happen between us … but here we are. Jorge had always been my rock, my comfort and now … I don’t know what he is to me.
“I miss you”, I manage to mutter through the shakiness of my voice.
“I miss you too”, his reply seemed systematic and devoid of emotion. It was the monotony of his tone, the emptiness of his words, that terrified me to the core.
A deafening silence filtered through the phone. Both having everything to say, but noting to say at all, we kept silent. I think of the times where we used to lay in bed, our bodies intertwined as one, chest to chest, nose to nose. Our whole lives relying on each other’s fervent love, which we gave unconditionally. Now all we have to rely on are the million electrical chords, which attempt to keep us together. But even they are thinning and fraying as the thousands of miles between us beat them over. Yet we still cling, together; in hope.
“How a- you feel-ng”, I say helplessly.
“You’re cutting up, I can’t hear what you are saying”, Jorge calls through.
“Never mind. It was a useless question anyway”, I say more to myself than to him as the ever-present silence returns again.
“I haven’t seen your face in ages Tini”, he says despairingly, but that makes no effect on me, I feel irritated by the need to continue with these useless comments. The reality is that we hadn’t seen each other in six weeks, but moping over the phone about it isn’t going to change that. This meaningless and strained exchange between the two of us is just getting on my nerves. It shouldn’t be like this, it should never have been like this, conversation should flow through me like natural, but now the routine seems forced, stiff, not right. I hardly know who Jorge is anymore, and I’m beginning to lose track of who I am. Tears cascade down my cheeks, only wishing that Jorge were here to wipe them away with a gentle swipe of his thumb, brush the stray stands of hair behind my ear and kiss me, forget about everything and just kiss me. Maybe if he were able to do that I wouldn’t say what I’m about to say. But he isn’t.
