We Who Are Jaded

Chapter Twenty Nine

I ran into the flat, placing the picnic basket promptly down but finding no moment spare for doing away with my shoes or wet clothes. Instead I pushed on, opening my bedroom door and heading straight for my dresser. My nose and hair were still dripping from the down pour but  I flicked them away, hands shaking and heart pounding. I threw aside the cheap cosmetics and forgotten school letters I was supposed to have given Mum and Ross. 

I was sure he'd left it here. 

I wanted him to have left it here. 

A small square of paper caught my eye, numbers scrawled in a wonderful familiar hand. I paused, halfway through a pile of old magazines. Cautiously I reached for the scrap, turning it as though it might shatter between my quaking fingers. 

"Bingo." I scrunched it in my fist and left the mess I'd made of my room in search of the phone. 

Once there, handset before me, I wondered if what I was doing was such a good idea. 

Mum would kill me for the price of such a phone call, let alone anything else.. 

The piece of paper in my hand was burning, a betrayal waiting to happen. Was I really that angry at Kieran? 

Yes, yes I was. If Kieran was going to play dirty then who was I to hesitate? 

I deserve this. 

Do you though Evans? Do you deserve to hurt Tom for the sake of one, stupid indigo eyed boy?

I picked up the phone, measuring the distance between me and the front door. I guessed there was enough cord to stretch out onto the landing to give me the privacy I desired. 

Mum knew too much already. 

The cord shadowed me as I pulled it towards the door, the coils undoing themselves. I wedged open the door and slipped through. The stairwell was deserted, allowing me to sink to my knees and cradle the phone in my lap.

In one hand I held the receiver, the other the creased bit of paper I'd held so tightly the numbers were beginning to smudge. I had to do this, I had to remind myself how to feel something. And maybe, just perhaps, I could say all the things to Tom that would have read cowardly in a letter. 

I studied the numbers on the garish panel and then the ones on the paper. My thumb brushed across the numbers before I finally began entering digit by digit. I lifted the phone to my ear and felt my heart skip with every echoing ringing. I bit at the flesh surrounding my thumb nail, a sudden rush of nerves flooding my stomach.

On the thirteenth ring someone picked up.

"Hello, is um Tom there?" I choked, sweat breaking across my brow. Maybe I had the wrong number or perhaps he'd be out with friends. 

Maybe all of his letters were a lie and Tom had a life, a good life without me in it. 

"Speaking, who's this?" 

Oh how wonderful it was to hear his voice. 

"Hi Tom it's – er, Chris, eh Christine." Peeved by my own awkwardness I knocked my head against the door. What was wrong with me? I was unable to even compose a sentence, so overwhelmed with relief to hear him. 

"Christine!" He breathed my name as though it was his air, his everything. "I'm so glad you called. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten me," Tom said. His voice was so warming and friendly despite everything. It was the only thing I needed to fill the emptiness Kieran had left. He was a world away and yet I could picture him as though he was within reach of my fingertips.