Fates, Furies and Freckles(Watty Awards 2013)

εικοστό ένατο

                                                                  {Present Day}

                                                                  Point of View:

                                                   ++Pelops/Aaron++(Tantalus's Son)

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 My phone plays Dance Dance by Fall Out Boy every time someone calls me. It has for a few months now, and my brain is trained to wake up to it as it is also my ringtone. 

So, when it goes off in the kitchen at 4:07 in the morning, my brain hears it from three rooms away and wakes me up.

I almost roll over and go back to sleep, but then I start thinking. Who calls me? Posiedon, but he lives here. So that rules him out. No one else would have any good reason for calling me at four in the morning.

So, I sigh and pull myself out of bed and trudge into the kitchen. I flip the panel of lights on and pick up the phone. I don't even have time to say hello before I hear sobbing on the other end of the line. All it is is crying, but I can tell exactly who it is. 

"I'll be there in ten minutes," I say over her sobs, and swipe my keys off the counter. I send a text to Posiedon telling him I'm leaving, and hop in the car. 

If that had been basically anyone else on the other line, I would not be in the car right now. But this is her, and I can tell she is hurt, and there's something seriously wrong. I don't think she's the type of girl to let her guard down that easy.

I'm pulling down her street exactly nine minutes later, wondering what on earth could have happened since I spoke to her a mere 7 hours ago. 

I pull up the house and get out of the car, and sprint up to the door. I don't even have to knock, the door is already opening by the time my feet hit the doormat. She blinks at me like I'm a figment of her imagination, and I notice her eyes are rimmed red from crying and she's holding a box of tissues. She's dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, and it registers in my brain that I'm not sure she has slept at all.

"You really came," She breathes, and her forehead wrinkles as it looks like she tries not to burst into tears again.

I walk inside and she shuts the door after me. "I told you I was coming, didn't I?"

Dani pulls another tissue out of the box and runs it under her eyes. "Yeah, but I didn't think you actually would. I am so sorry. I know you're sick and it's 4 am... and I don't know what I was thinking. You should just go home."

She looks like she might cry again and so I grab her hand. "Hey, hey, what's wrong?"

She shakes her head and looks up and blinks. "I don't know. My dad is never here anymore. He just left in the middle of the freaking night to go back to work. And I don't feel like I really have parents anymore. My mom is gone, and I feel like I'm losing my dad too."

Her face screws up and I pull her into me, her face in the crook of my shoulder. I feel her back shake and I know she's silently crying. I rub my hand across her back and she sniffles and after a few minutes she pulls away.

"I'm so sorry," She says.

I laugh, "Nothing to be sorry about, Dani."

"I'm a mess. Oh my gosh, I'm a mess. You have to believe me when I say this is totally out of character for me. I don't cry. I'm not a crier."