One Hundred Sleepless Nights

9

~ four years earlier ~

I hit the Call button again before I can stop myself.

One ring.

I'm so desperate at this point that I don't care how long this phone rings for, I need an answer.

Two rings.

Maybe he's busy. Maybe he's driving or taking a shower or on his way here already. Maybe he's nervous. Maybe he doesn't even know what day it is.

Three rings.

He has to know what day it is, there's no way he could ever forget, right? Its impossible to have forgotten. I've been thinking about it for weeks and weeks, dreading the day that it finally came, and now it has and I'm even more alone than I felt last year.

Four rings.

He has to be ignoring me at this point. Its my fourth call to him. If he was busy he still would've heard his phone going off or someone would've told him already.

Five rings.

I get that he's angry but its been a year. An entire fucking year of not hearing from me. There's no way he's still angry.

Six rings.

What if he changed his phone number and I'm calling some poor innocent person who's now being harassed.

Seven rings.

What if he fucking blocked me? There's no way he would. Right? He loves me, there's no way he would block me.

Eight rings.

If he knew how close I was to the edge he would answer his phone. He wouldn't leave me here all alone to deal with my breakdown. This is just driving me closer and closer to the edge, closer to giving up completely. 

His voicemail comes on now, tempting me to leave a message. I hang up before I can even register a message. If I call once more he'll answer, I know he will. He wont ignore five calls from me.

I take a deep breath and hit Call for the fifth time.

One ring.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Today is the hardest day I've ever gone through and he's fucking ignoring me. I need him now more than ever.

Two rings.

I can feel the tears start to brim my eyes again. Its like all I do is cry lately. For a year straight I've cried every single day. Every single one.

Three rings.

I've thought about giving up. I told myself if things don't get better in a year, then I'll be gone. I'll go and meet my dad again. Twelve months until I need to make that decision.

Four rings.

I might as well do it earlier. Clearly nobody is wanting to hear from me or deal with me. I've lost most of my friends this year because I've been too depressed to even leave my house. I almost lost my job a couple of times. There's nothing worth even hold on for anymore, nothing that-

"What do you want?"

It takes me a second to register the fact that the voice has stopped ringing and that he's actually answered. After five fucking calls he finally answered. I knew he would.

"Jaime." I say, so relieved that he finally answered me.

"What do you want, Alia?" he asks, his tone just as angrier as it was a year ago when we last spoke. 

"I just needed to talk to you." I say. I thought he would be happy to hear from me, but hearing his anger just makes me feel small.

"I don't want to talk to you." he says.

"Jaime, please, its been a year."

He gives a dry laugh on the other side of the phone. "You think a year would fix the fact that you fucked my best friend?"

"N-no, but I thought that maybe-"

"Maybe what? I'd forgive you? Be fucking serious, Alia. I don't want to talk to you ever again, and by ever again I mean never ever again, not in two years, not in ten, never."

"Jaime I was hurting! I didn't know how else to cope with it and its not like-"

"Not like what?"

"Its not like you were there." I say before I can stop myself.

"I was hurting too, did you ever think of that?" he yells into the phone. "But no, you never think of anyone else because you're so fucking selfish."

"I was selfish?" I yell back at him. "I planned my entire dads funeral and I'm selfish? You did NOTHING, not me."

Jaime is dead silent on the other side of the phone. For a second I think that he's hung up but when I look at the phone I can still see he's there.

When he speaks again he is eerily calm which makes what he says that much worse because I know he truly means it.

"I don't want you in my life. There's no reason to even have you in it, not anymore. Don't call me, don't text me, don't even think of me because I know I wont be doing any of that for you. That day a year ago, you died as well to me."

And with that he hangs up leaving me there alone. Maybe a year is too long to given myself...