Emily

The Telephone

She had only seen him five times in her life. She had believed she had moved on. Emily was the one who had ended their brief relationship(if you can call it that), and yet she loved him. Maybe it was the loneliness, the ghost of her memories, or the morsel of hope she had that true love exists, but she would not let go of him. Emily did not care. She would rather suffer in her dream than be sent back to reality. Every night she waited by the phone, waiting with an anxious heart for him to call. Emily was cursed with an unnatural amount of hope in her body, which allowed her to convince her mind that things- very unlikely things- would happen.

It was like a cord in her heart that somehow connected all the way to her brain and eyes. This was her cursed hope. It was how she is able to ignore reality and believe in daydreams. Tonight was different. The air was off; her routine strawberry smoothie sat untouched. Her perfectly tidy hair was in chaotic curls. The cord was tearing. Emily was smoking a cigarette. She stared at the aging telephone that connected to the wall. Memories of comfortable silence, perfect hugs, and empty promises flowed through her-tearing the cord even further. She inhaled the smoky poison and got up. She stood directly in front of the perpetually silent telephone. One more distant memory played: A boy handing a crying girl her fairy doll, looking at the ground, shuffling his feet. The little girl grabbed it, smiled, then hugged the little boy. Not expecting the hug, the boy stood there, but the girl held on, and he eventually hugged back. They stayed that way until the birds went silent.

The cord snapped. Anger she didn't know she had trampled through her mind. Emily grabbed the telephone and smashed it, sending bits and pieces of plastic flying around her. She stomped on it and threw it some more. "You promised!" She screamed over and over. Tears ran down her cheeks. It was 3:16 a.m. A group of teenagers were drinking and laughing behind their school. A baby cried, waking the entire house. Emily Mill sat there on the floor, holding the remains of the rotting phone, inhaling another shot of smoke.

What was different that night? What made her finally break? A guy simply asked her out on a date. Reality smacked her in the face and told her that her life was going on without her. While she spent her nights staring at a telephone, the world had moved on from her problems. That the little boy who gave her her doll was gone, moved on. It was time to let it go. Time to release her white knuckled hands from the rope of connection between them. She refused to accept that for so long. She would not let go, how could she?

She had stared at the embodied version of her torment, and accepted the date. It was too late for Tyler. He would never call...she knew that now. Emily had spent too many silent nights waiting. She did not like reality. It was rude. She did not like it at all.