Whispering With You

16. I thought we didn't need to look pretty for each other.

Sutton

VIVI BURSTS INTO MY ROOM, NOT BOTHERING to knock, the door banging against the wall a loud punctuation to her sudden arrival. The only light is from the warm glow of the lamp on my bedside table illuminating the mess on the floor in front of me, the contents of the box strewn all around in disarray. A folded letter sits in my lap, and I reflexively clutch it to my chest the second my sister barges in.

Her wide eyes take in the scene, the words that were about to spill out frozen on her mouth. She toes a few items out of her way, slowly walking through the room, and thrusts her phone in my face.

"Did you lose your phone? Did you drop it in water and now it's drying in rice? Did it die without you realizing it?"

"Huh?" I gawk up at her in utter confusion. "What are you talking about, Viv?"

Shoving her phone in my face again, she continues, "Your boyfriend has been blowing up my phone since you've been ignoring him. He has threatened to come over to see for himself if you're all right if I don't send proof of life." She takes a quick picture, the flash from her phone blinding me, and then quickly sends off a text. "There. Done. He can leave me alone now."

Just then her phone dings and she rolls her eyes. "Jesus, that guy. He's bossy and demanding. How do you put up with it?" Glancing at her phone, she skims the new text. "He says you look sad. Wants to know why."

"Jesus," I whisper as I hunt for my phone under all the discarded items from my mom's box. When I finally find it, I realize I have a bunch of missed calls and texts, all from Kelly. "He's so dramatic sometimes," I mumble as I push the redial button to call him. Seems easier than playing a game of telephone with my sister as the go-between.

He answers on the first ring. "Baby girl." His voice is gruff, a mixture of worry and irritation.

"Kelly." I mimic his tone, leaning more heavily on the irritation.

I remove the phone from my ear to look at the screen when I realize he's trying to video chat me. Quickly rejecting the request, I return the phone to my ear. "What do you want, Kelly? You've got your proof of life. You've seen I'm completely fine. You don't need to get your undies in a wad over nothing."

"Either accept my Facetime request or I'm coming there." There's no room for arguing in his statement, and I know him well enough to know he's serious.

Rolling my eyes, I get to my feet. "Fine." I cross my room on tiptoes to avoid all the debris of my mom's life. "Give me a minute, though."

"Why? You don't need to pretty up for me. Besides, I already saw what you look like, remember? Vivi sent me a picture."

"No, dumbass," I bite out as I walk through my dark house. "I'm going outside. Ok, I'm ready."

I situate myself on the front stoop, the coolness of the cement stairs seeping through the thin fabric of my pajama shorts. As I accept the video chat request, I have the brief thought that maybe I should have taken a minute to compose myself. I cringe at the image of myself staring back at me. My hair is pulled on top of my head in a messy bun, a headache already forming at my temples and working its way across my head. The day's makeup is smeared under my eyes. Instead of fixing my appearance—it's too late at this point anyway—I snuggle into the softness of Kelly's flannel that I threw on the minute I got home.

"So..." I prompt when the man on the screen is quiet.

Kelly is still in the same faded green tee from earlier, but his overgrown hair peeks out from under his backwards hat. I fixate on that detail rather than the intensity in his hazel eyes that seem to peer into my very soul. It's so unnerving the way he looks at me sometimes. I have a strong urge to reach through the screen and flick him in the forehead.