Sincerely, Dr. Cruz

Twenty Six A: Crystal Clear

Chapter Twenty Six: Crystal Clear (Neal)
Neal’s House: East Providence, Rhode Island

*ring ring*…. *ring ring*

“DADDY GET UP!”

I jerked out of my sleep, mostly because Ben has just jumped onto my stomach.

“What…” I said, pushing him off of me and turning onto my side.

“Your phone is winging!” He said, shaking me again.

“So…? Let it ring.” I said, still half asleep.

“It’s Reina.” He said, and I suddenly sat up on the couch, where I had fallen asleep a few hours before. I was suddenly on high alert, rushing Ben to go get the phone. He ran to the table where it was and tossed it to me, and I managed to answer it before it stopped ringing.

“Hel—ahem—Hello?” I said, trying to hide the fact that I was still sleepy.

“OhmygoshdidIwakeyouup? I’msosorryitsjustIhavenoideawhatthisonefilesaysand—“

“Reina, breathe. I don’t speak panic.” I said, a smile already making its way to my face.

“Sorry.” She said, a bit embarrassed.

“It’s okay.” I said with a slight laugh. “I was asleep but its fine. Whatever it is that you’re doing is way more important.”

“Right, okay. It’s just, I was trying to make sense of this file but I couldn’t exactly read the handwriting. God, whoever wrote this has some penmanship issues. Anyway, what is a…”

She continued talking and I answered her questions. It took 20 minutes to try to figure out what it was that she needed to decipher. The entire time, I was trying to refrain from zoning out into thinking about how soothing her voice was, or from laughing at Ben, who was making funny faces at me when he finally realized that I was going to be on the phone for a while.

“Thanks so much Neal. That just made my day 50 million times easier.”

“No problem.”

The line was silent for a couple of minutes as I heard muffled voices talk.

When you’re used to working almost every day and for long hours at that, having a day off was almost unusual. I spent all day today mindlessly surfing through channels, eating food, and sleeping. I didn’t know what to do with my time. Now while I gladly would’ve slept all day, a phone call from Reina was something I didn’t want to miss.

I honestly really liked talking to her, or even just hearing her voice. My day seemed incomplete without it. I mean, we had been working together for close to six months now, and to say the least, I really liked her.

Then I would think back to four years ago, when I saw her for the first time. I was being an idiot when I almost kissed her, but hey, look where that has me now. The day we met up again, she instantly recognized me and it was like we had known each other our entire lives—even if it really only was six months and a day.

More or less.

“Hey, you still there?” Reina asked.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Nothing, I was just wondering if you were still on the line. I got everything done and taken care of…”

“Is this your polite way of telling me you want me to hang up?”

“No! I mean, if you want to continue talking to me that’s fine but I was just packing up for the day and I’m really not good when it comes to distracted driving and—”