Phantom Texts

Two

I woke up the next morning to the sun shining gently on my eyes, and a good feeling, like I had had a good dream the night before. That's when I remembered the amazing dream I had. Oh, it was so nostalgic for my younger years when I loved two nerdy guys on YouTube named Dan and Phil. I dreamt that I had a text conversation with them because they had texted my number on accident. Or was it a dream? I thought. Some part of me thought it was real, but how could it have been? It was probably one of those weird dreams....those weird and super realistic dreams...
Well, there was only one way to tell if it was real or not.
I picked up my phone, turned it on, and lo and behold, no text messages from a Dan or a Phil.
Actually, there weren't any text messages at all.
"You've got to be kidding me," I said to myself, exasperated. All of my text messages were gone, as well as a good chunk of my contacts. I looked at my notifications, and there was a new one from my phone's settings:
New Update: your new update has been successfully downloaded!
I should probably explain something about my phone. It was a little older, and it glitched a lot. Especially since it was old and especially since new things on old phones didn't work that well. I had been planning on getting a new phone soon, but that was before my job fell through...
And my boyfriend broke up with me...
I felt like the universe hated me.
So, there was no absolute way of telling whether that dream was really a dream or not. Fantastic. Or, Phantastic, rather.
I was really starting to lose it.
So here were my problems:
A) I needed to find a new job so I could get a new phone since mine was potentially deleting texts from famous people.
B) I needed to find where my old address book was so I could import all my old contacts that my phone deleted.
C) I needed a way to find out if last night was real or not...
But how? How do you find that out? I didn't save their numbers, I was really tired so I'm not sure if it even happened, and if it did...
No, I wasn't going to get my hopes up yet. I decided to work on A and B first before I got to C. I got out of bed, had my morning coffee and cereal, and booted up my laptop to look for my digital address book and apply for some jobs. That's when my black lab came over and scratched at my leg, whimpering.
"Hey, Padfoot!" I greeted my dog, scratching him behind the ears. Padfoot walked over to his food bowl and wagged his tail, then walked back to me and laid his paw on my knee. I giggled at my dog's intelligence.
"Alright, boy, I'll feed you early today." I put his food in his bowl and he ate happily as I started putting my contacts back into my phone. I just wish I would've saved those numbers from last night...
After I thought I had all the contacts I needed, I looked for jobs to apply for. I searched through hundreds, but none seemed to catch my eye. By the time I looked away from my computer again, my eyes were stinging and Padfoot was looking at me pitifully, as if he was trying to ask why I wanted another job.
"I know, boy. I know," I said, leaning down to pet his head. He licked my hand affectionately, and I smiled.
I tried to go back to job hunting, but my eyes were stinging a lot by then, so I decided to take a break and start getting lunch ready.
"I don't know, boy. I just can't seem to find anything I like, you know?" Padfoot looked up at me, completely clueless.
"Of course you don't know. You're a dog. You wouldn't understand." I walked over to him, and he rolled onto his belly, wagging his tail.
"You're so lucky. You don't even have to wear pants." After I said that, my phone started ringing.
"Hold that thought, boy," I told him as I walked to get my phone.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Sylvia?" Oh boy. It was my ex. "I just wanted to talk about last night..."
"I thought there was nothing left to say, Tyler."
"Well, there isn't-I mean, there is but-" he sighed. "I just wanted to...you know, make sure you're okay... I feel bad, I really do, but...you know..."
"Yeah, I know."
"So, how are you doing? And tell me the truth." The truth? Not great, dude. Not great at all.
"Well, I was thinking kind of along the same lines you were, so it's okay...I guess it's just going to take some getting used to not doing stuff together anymore, you know?" Tyler, my ex, and I had been dating since we were freshman. And we were close friends through all of junior high. Being without Tyler is like losing a piece of myself. I never thought I'd have to be without him...
But things change. Time keeps going on and on and doesn't care what happens to anyone affected by it. A side effect of time is change. Change will keep happening as long as time does, and time is endless, thus, change is too. The relationship Tyler and I had was a beautiful thing, but its destruction was just a side effect of time. A side effect of change. A side effect of life itself.
"Yeah, I know what you mean..." His voice cracked a little when he spoke. Tyler was the sweetest and most sensitive guy I knew. I could tell he really didn't want the heartache of talking to me again, but he called to make sure I was okay. He called because he cared about me, even if it wasn't romantically anymore. Most people wouldn't do that for their exes.
I took a deep breath.
"Tyler?"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe we should...get some space. See other people..."my voice trailed off. We had been a couple since we were freshman...
"Yeah..." A small sniffle could be heard over the phone from him.
"We can still be friends, but...let's just give it some time, okay?"
"Yeah...friends..." He sounded as if he was trying out this new concept of friendship instead of love. "I'm okay with being friends again."
I smiled a little. "I'm glad."
"Me too."
"So...see you around, then?"
"Yeah...see you around..."
I hung up my end before it got too awkward, and slumped back down where I was before Tyler had called.
"Back to job hunting, then, Padfoot?" I sniffled and smiled, rubbing my dog's ear. "Yeah, back to job hunting..."
~
Buzz buzz
I awoke to the sound of a new text message. Somewhere between all the boring, endless job hunting and the movie I had softly playing in the background, I had fallen asleep. And now I was being woken up by a text message. I gathered myself, yawned, and grabbed my phone to read the message:
"Hey, you don't watch Dan and Phil anymore by chance, do you?"
It was from one of my younger high school friends, Katie. Katie was two years behind me in school, so she was a senior now, and yes, she still loved Dan and Phil.
I replied:
"Not really anymore. Why?"
She texted back less than a minute later:
"Well, you might want to watch Dan's new video. Like, now."
That seemed odd. Especially because of that dream with the texts I had had...
Out of curiosity, I looked up Dan's YouTube, got the latest video, and, well, watched it. It started out normal. Dan and Phil were doing just regular Dan and Phil stuff-being giant, adorable nerds who still somehow made me laugh-and nothing was really out of the blue. I was starting to think that maybe Katie was just trying to start my spark of interest for them again. I was just about to close the window when I heard something that made my heart stop.
"Before we go, we'd like to ask something of the person who we accidentally texted the other night," Dan said, calm and cool as ever. I had started to second guess that what happened was just a dream.
"I tried to text you yesterday, but for some reason your number wasn't working anymore, and we'd like to talk to you about those two things we had discussed," Phil said.
"Yeah, so if you could please text us or leave a comment below or tweet us or email us or something, we'd be really grateful of that..." Dan made an adorable smile toward the camera-wait, no. I was too old for dreaming about things that wouldn't come true. I had to keep my head level. So, Dan smiled toward the camera.
"If you could please tell us your name and what both of the ideas were, that'd be fantastic. One of us will come in contact with you somehow, and we'll give you our numbers again so we can continue to speak."
"So for this reason, we'll be reading a lot of comments, so if it wasn't you, please, I say again please do not pretend it was you or tweet us for no reason; it'll save us a lot of time and we'll be able to make another video sooner if you don't."
"Again, please put all your comments for us on hold starting today, and please notify anyone who doesn't know, too."
"Oh, and just so you know whether it's you or not, the first two letters of this person's name were S Y. Until next time, we'll see you around."
The screen went black. I was shaking a little.
It was me, I thought. It wasn't just a dream...
I had to get ahold of them, and fast.