We Could Be Enough - Lams

XXVI.

What the fuck.

My hand shakes as my eyes go over those texts over and over again. All I can hear is the pounding of my heart and there's no air left in my lungs. 

The passenger door slams as Alex slides into his seat. "Hey."

He sees that I have his phone, and a flash of concern crosses his face. "What's up? Is something wrong?"

No shit something's wrong.

I throw his phone over to him and lean against the door, looking at my reflection in the window. I don't know what to do. What do you even do in this situation? Did I do something wrong?

In the reflection on the window, I see him pick the phone up. "What the fuck?" He whispers after a few seconds. "John-"

"What?" I hiss.

"I didn't-I don't know...what she's doing, I swear  I didn't-" He stops. "John-"

"What!" I face him again. Why?

"Just-please listen? This looks bad- I know it looks really bad, but I can promise you, I have no clue what she thinks she's doing."

"Well, then what's with the heart next to her name! I thought you broke up forever ago!"

He looks down at the phone, then his head shoots back up. "All of our contacts have hearts! Everyone-"

"Excuse me?"

"Everyone in our friend group has a heart next to their name, but Eliza's is blue because that's her favorite color. It's not just her, I swear." He shows me the screen of his phone, the contacts of the last few people he texted were right there.

Eliza's was at the top. A blue heart sat right next to her name. I look down the list, and he's right. 

Angelica has one. So does Peggy, and Herc, and Lafayette. Even me.

"Oh."

"But she still-I don't know why she's like this all of a sudden. I just-she's not normally like this." He sighs. "I'm sorry."

A few moments of silence pass before he speaks again. "I think I should call her, clear it up.

"Well, yeah, 'cause I'm obviously not very happy with this." He looks over to me. "Like, I know we haven't told anyone yet but...I don't know. Like, I don't want to push you away from your friends. So just-do what you want."

I feel numb. I don't know what's going on. Am I over-reacting? Am I not reacting enough? I can't tell. It's not his fault. He explained it to me before. He's told me countless times that he doesn't think of her like that anymore. But I can't get it out of my head. It's been almost a year since they broke up

Why?

Does she still like him?

This seems really out of the blue, there has to be something else.

My thought is eating away at me.

Before I can say anything, Alex asks, "Can I call her? Like, see what's going on? I just don't wanna-"

"Sure."

He fumbles around with his phone for a little bit, then calls her. I expected him to call her privately, but he puts it on speaker and sets the phone on the middle console.

It rings out. He calls her again, and we wait.

Ring

Do I want her to answer?

Ring

This is going to be really awkward.

Ring

I shouldn't be getting in the middle of this.

Ring

Oh god.

Ring

What's going to happen if she doesn't pick up?

Ri-

She picks up.