All Bets Are Off

Chapter Thirty-One - Phoenix Adams: The Heartbroken Heartbreaker

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            Dedicated to xXPushingYourLuckXx for being a super cool chicka who gives me raisin biscuits. You, my friend, are awesome.

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~Chapter Thirty-One – Phoenix Adams: The Heartbroken Heartbreaker~

 

 

Phoenix’s POV –

 

I awoke at five-thirty Tuesday morning to the ringing of my phone, which was an annoying bleating sound loud enough to wake the dead.

“That explains why I put it on silent all the time,” I groaned to myself as I peeled my eyes open. I yawned and looked at the clock, my eyes almost bugging out of my head. It was five-thirty in the morning! Who was calling this early?

Immediately worst-case scenarios swarmed my head, things like the death of a loved one, Seth in trouble, Josh with a broken-down car calling for assistance.

But when I picked up the phone and checked the Caller ID, I saw that it was an unknown number, and not from one of my friends.

I pressed it to my ear and waited for a second, before speaking. I rubbed my tired eyes as I did so. “Hello?”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, where all I could hear was low, shaky breathing. Was this a wrong number? Or a prank call? I swear, if this was a prank call, these kids had a new thing coming to them. It was five-thirty in the morning, and I was not a nice person in the mornings.

“Hello? Is somebody there?” I asked again, hoping to coax an answer out of the caller.

There was a second of silence, before a small, scared voice echoed down the phone. “Phoenix.” I recognized the sound of my name straight away, and sat up from where I’d been leisurely laying in bed.

“Ella?” I asked, my eyes wide. “Ella, is that you?”

There was a sigh from the other end, before she spoke again, almost cracking my heart in two. I hadn’t heard from her since the argument Saturday night, when I’d turned up late to the dance. Of course, I deserved her anger—I hadn’t meant to be out so late—but I’d immediately gone on the defensive; a big mistake. I’d tried calling to apologize since, but she hadn’t answered my calls, nor had she come back to the hotel when I’d been there. When I’d been about to check out I noticed her luggage absent from the room and her room key on the table. It had been the defining moment when I knew I’d really screwed things up.

“Yeah,” I heard her whisper, so low and husky that I could swear she was crying. Why was she calling, and from an unknown number? “Yeah, it’s me.”