He shouldn't have called her. He knew it the moment his fingers finished putting in the numbers. He tried to hang up but it was too late. She answered on the first ring. He didn't let himself think about what kind of person answers the phone on the first ring.
She wasn't his to think about at all anymore.
And whose fault is that?
He didn't respond to her first "Hello." He wanted to savor the sound of her voice. He imagined it was what honey would sound like. Finally, he spoke. "Hello," he said quietly.
Silence.
She was deciding whether or not to hang up. Would she slam the phone down this time or would she do it quietly? It depended on her mood. She had done both.
Or would she talk to him?
He counted the seconds as they passed. If the total made it to over twenty that meant she wasn't going to hang up. She just hadn't decided what she wanted to say yet. He didn't blame her, really.
What was there to say? Why'd you call her then? Why'd you interrupt her day, bother her like this?
The answer was simple. I just wanted to hear her voice.
Almost as if she could hear what was going on in his mind, she said, "Needed to hear my voice again, did you?"
"Something like that."
"Thought so. What else could it be?"
He didn't allow himself the luxury of flinching at the bitterness in her voice. After all, he'd caused it.
"I was just thinking about you," he said.
"Well, I wasn't thinking about you."
"No reason why you should." What he wanted to say was, "Think about me always—the way I think about you!" but he couldn't. When you're the one who does the leaving, you don't get to be the one who suffers.
"Is there something else you wanted?" she asked, a barely detectable note of hope in her voice.
He wanted to say, "Yes. I want you," but he couldn't. They were too far gone for that, so instead he said, "No" and counted the seconds before she hung up.
It took sixty this time. He didn't know if her reluctance to sever the connection made him feel better or worse.
The End.