Caller ID

The Night We Spoke

2:43.

Who could possibly be calling me at that time? Perhaps I should've just put my phone on silent and gone back to sleep, God why was tonight the one night I left my ringer on. I had been having such a good dream too.

"Hello?" I muttered groggily, brushing the sleep dust out of the corner of my eye. I hadn't even looked at the contact or anything just picked up. What if it was someone trying to tell me I had 7 days to live? Or what if someone was calling me just to breathe heavily on the phone? Oh crap I should put the phone down before I never have a decent night of sleep again.

"Alaia?" I recognise that voice.

"Eros? What do you want?" I muttered, why would he be calling me this late at night? God, I know he doesn't think school matters but I for one would like to wake up before first period tomorrow. "Look, it's late, if it's about school work or something you can ask me tomorrow morning or get one of your buddies to harass me into giving it to you or something." I roll my eyes just thinking about them. The people he hangs around with are such heathens.

"No, no school work." He murmured lowly.

"Then what the hell do you want at this time of night?" I snapped, finally losing my patience with this man, he doesn't give me the time of day until he wants work in the middle of the night or something.

"Tell me how much you hate me."

"What?" I wasn't expecting that. My eyebrows must've looked like a unibrow with how much I furrowed them in that instant. 

"God, I know you think I'm a douchebag. Just, just tell me I'm a dick and you hate me and you wish I never existed," I could hear the inflection in his voice, he sounded pained, anguished even. Is this some strange convoluted dream? He sounded so different now than he ever had, something felt raw, felt exposed.

"Tell me I'm a stupid piece of shit and you hope I die. Tell me everything you hate about me. Please, Alaia I need you to do that for me. Not homework or to make you miserable. I just want you to tell me how much you despise every fiber of my being and how much you wish I was dead."

"Eros, what the fuck is wrong with you, where are you? What's going on?" My head feels like it's spinning. I feel like the rollercoaster is going down and down and down and I can't see where the end is. I'm so confused, in any other situation I would've thought they were playing a prank on me but something about his voice assured me this was all very real.

"At my house. I'm alone. I'm alone, Alaia. I need you to hate me. I know you hate me. Just say the words and I'll go."

So far in my life Eros was just a minor inconvenience. Throughout my years of school his friends had hassled me for all sorts, homework, pocket change, occasionally calling me names and trying to hurt my feelings but I knew none of those were true for two reasons. Every time they called me ugly or anything of the sort I knew it wasn't true because thankfully I had inherited my mother's beautiful face and secondly, I knew they were just trying to get some of their own back because somehow I broke the heart of one of their own, Jason, when he was the one to cheat on me. Ironic, ain't it. I mean I suppose that's a nice kind of power to have. I'm just thankful they were never too brutal about trying to hurt me.

No, while Eros for the most part stayed out of it he was actually the best friend. He wasn't too fond of me while I was dating Jason, lord knows why. I suppose I understand his plight though, after all, you can't really be friendly with the person who broke your best friend's heart. United front to everyone else and correct them in private, the best friend code.

"Eros, I don't hate you what are you talking about?" I say, I felt like if I said something wrong here something bad would happen.

He doesn't reply.