The Phone Call

As  always the house was colder than the outside weather, it was an effect that it´s brick walls and the lack of windows, but one, made. It was silent as well, the perks of living on a mountain.
I was still on my pj´s despite it was past noon, I had been wandering in the kitchen for something to eat, no food had entered my mouth since dinner the day before. Suddenly I heard the phone ringing, surprised I slowly walked towards it. It never rang, no one really called us. I picked it.

"Hello?" I said unsure. I guessed it was probably some of those annoying phone-advertisings that the companies seems to have taken into like lately.
"Well, young lady, how come you didn´t come to school today?" a voice said with mockingly scolding tone. The voice had also recognized my voice but I hadn´t recognized to whom this voice belonged, obviously to one of my classmates but who?
"why didn´t you come?" the voice asked again in a normal tone and I recognized the voice. It was a... friend. I hadn´t decide if this person was my friend yet, I wasn´t use to friends so I couldn´t know for sure ... "are you sick?" the voice urged me to answer.
"ah, yeah...I´m sick..." I answered not elaborating and still shocked for the first call I´ve ever gotten.
"aw, I´m sorry. Will you be comming back to school tomorrow?" The voice asked not pressuring me to know what I had but sounding genuine. I didn´t know what to answer, I was not going to go back to school the next day but I didn´t want to be asked why.
"mmmmhh I´m not sure..." I struggled to say expecting the questioning that would surely follow.
"ah, that´s too bad" the voice sounded genuine again, dissappointed maybe that I wasn´t going to be there.
"yeah"
"well, get better soon ´cause we have a lot to do, I signed you with me for the group work we have for science class" the voice said keeping that happy tone that had been used throughout the conversation.
"sure" I replied not knowing what else to answer.
"ok, I have to go now, get better soon!"
"ok, thank you for calling" I said and hung up.

A phone call from a friend is such a normal thing, what friends do, they check up on each other. It was so weird that I got a phone call, so despite it being a very normal and common thing it was a very strange thing to me. I had left me at a loss but somehow I was glad that I had gotten a call. After that I didn´t think much of it, until the next day where I got a similar phone conversation with the same happy voice that had called me the day before...

"I´ll call you" the happy voice said. I was back at school. As promised that afternoon I had a phone conversation of anything in particular. I kept getting phone calls regularly. And when I was sick I got them too with the same greeting line "well, young lady, how come you didn´t come to school today?" but instead of struggling for words I´d chuckle.

After leaving higschool the phone calls were more and more appart but it was ok, I had been the first one to make the intervals between them longer since a year before graduating, in my mind that was the best remedy to certain feelings that got enhanced everytime I heard that happy voice through the phone. One day the phone calls stopped yet in birthdays, Christmast and New Year´s eve there was always a call. It was right and it was good, I was sure my voice now sounded as happy as the voice that was on the other side of the line.

One day I got a phone call, it was no birhtday, no Christmas and no New Year´s eve but I was much more used to get phone calls -not exactly the ones that call you to ask how you are though but phone calls, all the same- I was surprised that it was the happy voice. We conversed for so long, catching up with what we´d done and accomplished and lost during the time we hadn´t see eachother, it was so natural, as if no time had passed, two friends talking.

 "I´m getting married soon" the voice said and I laughed because that was the little joke I had heard for over six years.
"right and I´ll be your bride´s maid and you´ll make me wear an awful dress"
"it´s no joke this time" the voice said keeping the happy tone but being serious at the same time.
"oh,come on!" I said knowing that the happy voice loved to trick me like that.
"hey, no, this time I´m really not joking. Why don´t you believe me?" the voice inquired, maybe a little hurt that I hadn´t believed the statement.
"well, because you always joke about it and... don´t you think you´re too young for marriage?" I said still shocked and once again, like many years ago, at a loss for words.
"I´m old enough to marry -the voice said jokingly- and this time, I´m not joking about it" There was silence between us for about a minute.
"wow! then, congratulations" I managed to say feeling my eyelids heavy and my eyes somehow in pain trying to hold back a stream that was forming. Was I about to cry?

We kept talking about weddings, dates, if I was being invited or not. I congratulated again and worded my best wishes as well as happiness. When the phone call was ended, my eyes became a river. I was crying, not the kind of crying that is noisy and you gasp for air but a quiet sobbing, only the salty water comming down my eyes and some kind of pain somewhere in my chest. I couldn´t stop either. Was I crying because my dear friend was getting married? if all I had to be happy for the news, being one of the firsts to know. I was happy, I knew I truly was happy for it but I was crying and I knew those were not tears of happiness... Could it be, I asked myself that the long ago buried feelings were the ones stirring up my tears.... But after so many years I thought that was long gone and by this time I was sure I had feelings for someone else. Is that possible? to have feelings for two people at once? How could that be?

I was never able to figure out why I cried when I got the getting married news. I never figured if it was possible to have feelings for two people at once. I, however, did look into myself and found that though I would always held dear that person, the feelings I once had were no longer there, maybe the crying at that time was the last remain of them in me that had to be dispossed. There´s something that will never be dead though and that is the good memories of the phone calls letting me know that someone cared if I dissappeared, the feeling that someone missed me, even if at least a little. Though I don´t get many phone calls, just like before that first one, once in a while when I do get them -even if it´s mostly work related- I remember the words: "well, young lady, how come you didn´t come to school today?" and chuckle to myself.

*****
Just a little idea that´s been bugging me for quite some time. I´m not convinced by it, I know it´s lacking a lot but.... w/e
pd.2 this was annoying to read with so many mistakes ¬¬ that´s what I get for posting without editing at all...