Hey, Celia? | ✔️

Chapter Eleven

Cecelia felt an onslaught of anxiety at the four, small words on the screen of her phone.

He wanted to call her. This shouldn't have been a big deal, but this was new, completely new. She didn't always fare well in new situations. The anxiety of the unknown was suffocating. Debilitating. So, she brushed it off with a joke. The same way she always did.

You? Call me? Better not. I have one annoying voice, sweetums. You might get a headache.

She became more nervous with each minute, each second that passed without a small vibration from her phone, alerting her that she had received a new message.

And with one small vibration, her muscles relaxed and her breathing became regular once more. It was silly, really, allowing the smallest of things to have such control over her physical reaction to things, but, silly as it was, it was her reality.

Do you just not want to talk to me?

Nevermind, it's fine. Talk to you tomorrow or something.

With those words, regret and hurt replaced anxiety. Regret for filling him with any ounce of insecurity or doubt and hurt, not for herself, but for the boy she'd grown far too attached to, far too quickly.

And so, she did the only logical thing someone could do in that situation.

She pushed down her anxiety and insecurity, dialing the number that was very similar to her older sister's, but not quite the same.

"Hello?" a deep voice spoke, leaving her with tingles. She wasn't sure whether it was because she was expecting his voice to have a more feminine nature, which would have been incredibly endearing, or whether it was the anticipation of hearing his voice. Of course, she hadn't known him longer than a couple weeks, but with how often they talked, it felt like ages.

"...is it me you're looking for?" She smiled softly as she recalled a previous conversation.

James nearly dropped his phone. He pulled it away from his ear and checked the caller ID. The contact name, 'Celia :)' met his eyes and he blinked twice before bringing the phone back to his ear.

He was dreaming. That had to be it.

Or hallucinating from lack of sleep.

He spoke once more, just to be sure. "Hello?"

She furrowed her eyebrows at him greeting her once more, but grinned anyway. "From the other side?"

"Oh, so this is definitely real. Only you would make such a crappy, outdated joke," he said, his tone laced with annoyance, but in reality his hands were trembling, his heart was racing, and his lips were...smiling? Yes. His lips were lifted in a gentle smile. A relatively uncommon occurrence for him.

"Dang, sweetums. No mercy," she said, biting her lip to stop her grin from growing to the point where it'd be considered creepy.

He smirked. "No rest for the wicked, babe."

"Literally!" she exclaimed, laughing at her own joke. "Get it? Because you have insomnia?"

He wanted to save that sound, somehow. Her laugh. To him, it felt like the word joy. Such a profound and sought after definition hiding behind its plain, single syllable, and three simple letters.

It felt like joy, turned into something intangible. Something he couldn't grasp within his calloused fingertips, but something he could feel starting from his ears and ending at his chest, where his hummingbird of a heart was.