Silenced by the Night

Missing one phone call

My phone rang from the beach bag whilst I was sitting on the sand with the three usual girls. I ran over it and answered the incoming call.

“Who is it?”

Paige mouthed. I answered her with a smile and walked further from them. As usual when I’m talking to Nathan I needed privacy. 

“Hey Nate”

“Hey El, how has it been there? I recently just woken up”

“It’s twelve o’clock noon. The usual Nathan James Sykes, always late”

“Yeah, so it’s almost summertime. Any plans of doing any activities”

“Maybe surfing or pranking or anything; anything that the girls will like”

“I need to go. The boys are pounding on the door for half an hour now”

I hung up before he could say anything. This wasn’t our routine; he would call about one thirty in the afternoon and call again every four hours.

“Ellie, we need to leave. Mum just called and asked us where you were. We answered that you were at Nathan’s”

“Yeah we really do. And I’m heading by Hanna’s tonight. Can the two of you watch over my room tonight?”

They both nodded and stood up from the sand and walked out the beach. It was four months away before summer; I couldn’t believe how time goes by. It was still a long time, but we could be patient. Actually, Thalia couldn’t. She’s been dying to meet Nathan since we both met.

Hanna and Cheyenne were talking outside my room. I was looking at my wallpaper in my phone; the photo Nathan sent me months ago; the photo of him wearing his uniform whilst in the house.

“Ellie, are you still awake?”

Cheyenne went in my room holding an envelope.

“It’s really late, but your friend came by”

“Who is it?”

Melody went in the room looking nothing like her.

“What do you want?”

“I want to be friends with you again. I’ve seen the three of you hang out with Thalia and I feel a bit out of place while seeing the four of you really happy and thinking about what to do when Nathan arrives in summer. So, I hope you understand that I really, really wanna be friends with you again”

I embraced her in a friendly hug and sat down on my bed.

“I missed you as well; it’s been a long time since I talked to you. I totally miss you”

“Where are Caylah and Paige? Even Thalia”

“They all are back at the house. We’ll see them tomorrow”

Thalia, Melody and I were all surfing passing the time while waiting for Paige and Caylah to go out. Well, Paige and Caylah had already forgiven Melody. Only three months until Nathan arrives and summer does as well.

“Ellie, Thalia, Melody, come and join us. It’s really boring on land”

“Why would we want to be on lad if it’s too boring?”

“Just get over here. Ellie, you got seventeen missed calls from Nathan”

I jumped off my board and swam back to shore.

“You’re kidding?”

Paige handed me my phone, it showed seventeen missed calls from Nathan.

“He’s gonna think I’m ignoring him”

I dialed his number but no answer. Great, now my best friend thinks I’m ignoring him.

“Mel, do you have Nathan’s number?”

“I have seventeen missed calls from him, too”

We looked at each other and back to the phone. We are so dead.

I looked at my phone for the seventeenth time to see if Nathan called just for once. Melody was doing the same and so did Thalia. We all were worried about him not answering the call.

“Maybe we should call my brother. He also studies in Ribston Hall”

Melody typed in a number and put it on loudspeaker. He answered after a couple of rings. 

“Hello”

“It’s Nathan”

I whispered and looked back to the phone.

“Hey Matt, I think your girlfriend’s calling”

“Sister Nathan, its sister. Hey Melody”

“Matthew can you put in Nathan for a minute; this is a bit urgent. His best friend, Ellie, is in absolute worry for him not answering the past calls she’s been doing”

“OK, let me just get him. Nathan, your best friend wants to talk to you”

There was silence after those words. Yapping echoed across the line.

“Hey”

“Nate, why haven’t you been answering our calls? We were surfing when you called”

Days were becoming worst while we waited for three and a half months for Nathan to arrive. It was almost his sixteenth birthday; mine was still in the twenty-fourth of April. He was older than me, just six days. Thalia was sitting beside me in Nathan’s place at the cafeteria table. We were in a different school but we all hang out together and also sat in the cafeteria in a five-chaired table.

“So, what are we all gonna do at Nathan’s birthday? Sure, he wouldn’t be here but how do we celebrate?”

“Ask Paige. She’s the creative one”

Paige looked at all of us and took out a tape recorder and pressed ‘start’.

“I was planning on recoding our voices and sending the tapes to him. Maybe, we can greet him this way, too”

“She has a point”

They started recording each other’s voices. I was imagining Nathan sitting on Thalia’s chair making the five of us laugh our heads off. He would be the first thing that was loud in the cafeteria if it was quiet. But we weren’t in grade school, we were in high school. Half of us were gone. Jacque and her group were gone; Alice and Catherine weren’t here either.

There was a lot of absence in high school now.

Does distance endears friendship, and does absence sweetens it?