Intro

The ceiling above my bed was an intricate pattern of plaster impressions. I wondered absently how the builders had accomplished it. The designs resembled those found on the sand dollars that my siblings gathered by the dozen at the beach. I wanted to reach up my hands and trace them, and became frusterated when the obvious reality of that impossibility encroached on my delirious state of numbness. 1

My eyes unfocused and reality began to pour down on me in heavy waves. I sat up, gasping. I steadily forced my eyes not to drift over to their resting place, the phone. It seemed they spent all their time in one of two places lately, the phone or the ceiling. Like they couldn't recall that other sights were much more aesthetically appealing, despite my efforts to remind them.2

When the phone remained silent, as it had almost constantly since my vigil began, two days ago, I slowly let myself lay back down. I traced the patterns on the ceiling with my eyes, as my fingers could not do. I took deep breaths and held them in, counting to four before letting them out, trying to fall back into my unfocused stupor. It kept the things I wouldn't let myself face head on at bay. But I was agitated now, and my eyes fell upon the phone again, with desperation. I was waiting, constantly waiting, for the call I hoped would never come. The call that would tell me what my best friend never would. The call that would tell me this was over. 3

My subconscious was sadistic. It yearned for the phone call. It wanted to show her the significance of her actions, it said. To be able to dance aorund yelling and screaming "Now what? I TOLD you so!" To wear black, shed my body weight in tears, draw attention to my misery making people ask themselves "why is she alone?" Most eagerly, my subconscious yearned to teach her the lesson in a way she'd never, ever forget. I argued, what use are lessons if you're not alive to appreciate them?4

I waited, suspended in time, for the phone call that would end everything. Five years of friendship, fifteen years of life, a lifetime of potential. I was waiting for the call that had the potential to break my heart and push me onto the rocky path of misery, or send us all hurtling down a concievably rockier path of healing. At this point, I wasn't even sure which outcome I feared more. Maybe only because I was ignorant of the pain that results from true loss.5

My heart beat increased the longer I continued my stare down with the phone. It wasn't fair, really. What had the phone ever done to deserve this scrutiny? Nothing. It was a good phone, when it's all said and done. I wrenched my eyes away.6

And then the phone rang.7