Broadwire

3: 16 Years Later

The phone blears in my ear while I'm asleep. My headache from the drinking the night before is intensified with each ring, like a pulse. Without opening my eyes, I lift my hand up onto the desk beside my bed, and feel around for my phone and find it not plugged into the wall outlet. I pull it to my face and the high brightness burns my eyes, and the number isn't familiar so I turn the phone off to stop the ringing. I stand up and immediately regret it because of the intensified headache, so I fell back down on the couch. I waited for the headache to go from terrible to normal before I stood up again. I noticed I was still wearing the clothes I had on the night before, but decided not to change until I took a shower. I walked into the kitchen and looked in my medicine cabinet for the off-brand advil I had bought weeks prior for situations like this one. I grabbed a half empty Dr. Pepper can off my dinner table and downed three of the pills. I grabbed my laptop off the table too and went back to my couch. I pulled up reddit and other websites I used daily and just started looking through them, not looking for anything in particular, when my phone rang again. I looked at the number and unsurprisingly it was the same number from before. I slid the answer button and pulled the phone up to my face, expecting it to be someone trying to sell me something, but a voice came through the phone. A voice I had long forgotten.

"Is this Trenton?" the voice asked. I stood in shock, not knowing why or how I remembered this person's voice, but I did. It was Jasmine's.

"Y- yea it's me. Jasmine?" I asked, making sure my suspicions were right.

"It's me, we need to talk," she said, her voice still having the same uneasy tone from the last time we talked.

"Well, let's talk," I said, not understanding what she meant.

"No, in person. Do you still live in Broadwire?" she asked, but I think she knew the answer to that question.

"No, I moved out the day we graduated from school, to forget- to forget what had happened," I still couldn't say his name without going into a slight panic.

"I had a feeling that was the case. I did the same thing though," she said, not very surprised by my answer.

"Wait, have you talked to Sarah?" I asked, suddenly remembering our old friend's name.

"Well, that's one of the things I want to talk about. Can you drive back out to Broadwire?" she asked, and my heart sank.

"Y- you want me to go back," I asked, as I sat down, trying not to pass out.

"You're going to have to at some point, you'll know why when you get here," she said nonchalantly as if she hadn't just made me want to ball up in the corner and cry myself back to sleep.

"I can, but not for a few hours, that's a fifteen hour drive, and a plane ticket's hard to come by that fast, plus I'm still a little drun-" I started to say, but didn't want to alarm her with my slight alcoholism. She had heard though, but she understood.

"I'll buy you a plane ticket, just get an Uber there or something," she said, as if buying a plane ticket for that day was just pocket change.

"I don't want you to spend that much on me, we haven't talked in ages," I said, still surprised at the amount she was okay with spending.

"It'll be fine, I need you here anyway," she answered. "Here, where are you anyway?" she asked, realizing she had no idea where I had moved to after high school. I gave her my town name and she found a plane leaving out that day and bought it then sent it to me over text.

I got a suitcase that was probably ten years old and stuffed at least two weeks worth of clothing in it, not knowing how long I would be back in Broadwire. I grabbed my last bit of cash and called into my work and used up all my vacation days, which was only three weeks. I got on the Uber app and called one in and waited. I sat down and noticed that one of my tv stand's cabinets were slightly open. I walked over to it and saw a thick board in it. A thick board and a planchet.