THE CALLER

So I got a call late last night.

I had turned my ringer off, so it was the vibration that woke me up. It jarred me out of sleep, and i considered ignoring it completely, but my curiosity got the best of me. I picked the phone up, willing my eyes to focus, but before i could clearly read who it was calling me, my thumb slipped across the touchscreen, hitting the answer button, the equivalent of taking the phone off the hook. I had to answer. Still blind, I put the phone next to my ear, hoping against hope that it was --

"Hello..." I said, doing my best to sound wide awake. I have this thing about sounding groggy on the phone. Not that i don't want people to know I sleep, but for some reason sounding sleepy makes me feel vulnerable. Go figure.

"Hey." It was not the voice i wanted to hear. Or a voice i expected to hear in a month of Sundays.

I was quiet.

"Lex?" "Did i wake you? Were you asleep?"

I looked at the clock. 3:35 AM.

"Yes." I said, too stunned to worry about whether that sounded rude or not.

"Sorry. Can i talk to you though?"

And so we talked. The conversation traveled the same roads and encountered the same barriers.

Nothing had changed.

We hung up, him feeling dissatisfied, me feeling drained. Did our interactions always leave me this way? A rhetorical question that i already knew the answer to. A year ago the call would have had me awake for the rest of the night, agonizing over details. A year ago i would have made an effort. Last night, i just went back to sleep.

Angela Bofill - I try (get well soon angie)