Eyes Wide Shut

Chapter 16

I scroll through my voicemails for the third time tonight. There are seven of them, one for everyday since I last saw her.

            I never returned any of them though. I’d keep my phone on me each day, anxiously waiting for my screen to light up with her name on it and it did. In the beginning, it was up to forty or fifty calls a day, but as the days have gone on, the count lowered. I’d let it ring, flash and vibrate then wait for it to beep and listen to her message. I always saved my favorites from that day. 

            And I’ve been waiting for this moment all day. Listening to the messages she has left me, just to hear her voice, even if it’s just for a couple seconds. Part of me is still angry, but part of me knows that responding to her would reopen those wounds. So instead of simply just returning her calls or returning home, I just listen to her messages over and over.

I know she has been taken care of. I told her sisters I had to go on an emergency trip out of town and told them where they would find the spare key so they could go there to take care of her.

            I’d seen her in the front of the papers just this morning, her Raybans covering her sad eyes as her sister, Elle, pulled her through the mob of paparazzi outside the grocery store. Knowing Mollie, she hated being cooped up in one spot for too long. But why, if she was already out, did she just not go back to her home? As long as she was safe and taken care of, that’s all I cared about.

            Only about a week since it happened; it was still fresh news. Elle would send me pictures of the men outside. I wondered if Mollie told her the real reason I was gone. Maybe it didn’t matter as much to her.

            “Frankie… just please… come home,” she left. And the next message came up.

            But as the messages kept going on, she didn’t say as much. Some were one word and some were just silence, but I could hear her slight breaths in the background.

            I yearned to see her face again, but still, I couldn’t bring myself to go back.

Mollie’s POV

            I was grateful my sisters were here. I knew Frankie must have told them. She may have been mad at me, not answering or returning any of my calls, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care. That’s why I called, over and over again. Letting her know that I cared as well.

            But there was only so much they could do. They couldn’t fill the void that was left in my heart. No matter what I thought of Frankie, no matter what we were, she was one of the most important people in my life.

            Please, Frankie. Just come back.

Frankie’s POV

            I walked through the door, back into the smug hotel room. And there he was, sitting in the chair next to the window. He turns toward the door, his face brightens up with my presence.

            “There you are,” Wayne says, standing up to walk towards me.

            I had told Wayne where I was. The loneliness got to be too much and I just need someone, and needed someone fast, to fill the absence. He wasn’t my preferred choice, but I knew he would come. Sure, I was using him, but I didn’t care.

            The expression on his face looked as if he thought all had been forgotten, yet it had been all I had thought about all week. If I hadn’t let him walk out that door, if I just told Mollie to go home that night, if I had just not called her to come over. I couldn’t help but blame myself and maybe that was part of the reason I couldn’t bring myself to go back. And the fact that I laid it all out on her in a time like this. What kind of friend, was I?