Ash

CHAPTER THREE

I didn't think the days could draw any longer than they had been for the past several weeks but now as I check the time for the fourth time in five minutes and find only those five minutes have elapsed I realize they can. It's not just Night anymore who's alliance life has sought to punish me with its cold barren hours of emptiness but now also Day, so that each of her minutes crawl along like hours and hours like days. I've spent twenty minutes watching five go by. What wouldn't I give to make the time go away, to make it disappear with all my hopes and dreams? It hurts to hope. Every day, every moment, waiting for the same thing to happen which never does. Nine months. Near ten now and nothing. No beams, no lights, not even a spark in my world of gloom. It's the finality that's done this to me. The unchanged words of Sheila that it can't be done were like a final call to the guillotine to an offender in the stocks. "It can't be done" translating to he can't be found. Untraceable. Like my happiness.

I find my hands performing a movement I don't recall my brain commanding, and my eyes soon fix on the consequence that action provides. A picture of us lights up my phone screen, of once when we rose over a thousand feet in a quiet gondola over the Puget Sound. No other detail catches my attention except for his face, borne on serenity and the half smile he gave as I took the picture. He was looking straight at the camera, and straight at me now, and as I stare too long I feel the water in my eyes rise.

They are withheld abruptly from forming into drops and I turn my phone over on the book I'm supposed to be reading when someone taps on my shoulder. Sure that they haven't spilled I turn listlessly, lost on who could possibly have anything to say to me here.

I halt when I find Beverly standing behind me, and in spite of my sorrow my interest is immediately piqued. Though she is Jordan's distant relative on his maternal side, she has never spoken to me before, except once to tell me politely to get out of her seat, and I can't think of what she could possibly have to say now.

She takes the chair closest to me. "Hi." She whispers so the librarian won't hear. I answer back, this new curiosity taking out the tremors in my voice.

"I know we don't talk much but I just got something that I think might be useful to you," she begins. "I've been watching you for a while now and I've noticed the changes and I know I can't be completely off the mark if I assume that Jordan has a lot to do with that?" I listen patiently to her without giving an answer.

"I have a strong suspicion that he didn't go to another school. Why would he when his sisters are still here, and whenever I go around their house I don't see their dad anymore. They always say he's busy."

I don't see where she's going with this. Is she hoping to get some information out of me?

"Anyway," she continues after a short pause, "The reason I'm here is that I wanted to give you his newest number. I was pretty sure you don't have it already because he made emphasis on me not disclosing it to anyone including you and I'm disobeying him because I can't just sit around and watch everyone around him break down. Jo and Jaz haven't been themselves at all lately and everyone just seems off." She finishes with that tone again that's giving room for answers to her implied questions. I feign deaf.

Meanwhile, the organ behind my rib cage jumps and contracts simultaneously as she produces a small piece of paper. The number is inked across in black.

"He called me on it twice in the past week so I know it's going through. I'm giving it to Jasmine today as well. If he wants to hate me he can but since no one's telling me anything I reserve the right to do what's right to me."

She leaves the paper on the desk. He called her two times in one week and not me or his sisters once. The green snake bites but I can hardly permit myself to be jealous of her now. She just opened a gateway I've been searching for since. But instead of a thank you a question jumps from my lips.

"Why did he call you?"

"To ask about you and his siblings. He asked if you were still coming to school and if I'd seen Jaz and Jo recently. I answered all and when I asked him why he didn't call you directly he just said it was better this way and that he'd keep in touch and I should keep it confidential."

He asks about us? So he does still think about us! Why, oh why didn't he just call me instead?

I snatch up the piece of paper. Seeing as I have nothing else to say she stands and makes to go back to her place.

"Thanks," I add before she's out of whispering earshot. She nods by way of 'you're welcome' and returns to her seat.

I store the number on my phone. I then stare at it on my screen. If it works then I'll finally get to hear his voice again. Will he pick up? What if it's another dead end? Can I stand that? But the very thought of not trying doesn't even occur to me. I must try, even if it'll fail. I must try everything.

I hurry home after the last bell. I nearly knock over the vase as I toss my bag on the couch and run upstairs. In the sanctum of my closed room I open my phone. My heart is pounding bass in my chest as I suffer a momentary paralysis. Sudden fear grabs me in its hold. What if it really is a false lead? The tormentor in my head says it is, that I'm wasting my time and that if it isn't he won't pick up at all when he sees my caller ID and I will break down and drown in my tears. Fighting her is tedious, but eventually I battle her will. I must call him. One more heartbreak is little compared to all I've suffered in missing him.

I hit the call button. It's already rung five times. There it goes, my hope, again washing away slowly. The fervor of the mocking voice increases with the lengthy draw of the last ring and then there's sudden silence.

Silence pregnant with shock as the on-call seconds count. He picked up. He actually did!

"Jordan?" Still silence, though I could swear I heard a sharp intake of breath. He's saying nothing, only listening.

"Hi," I start, sure to check that the timer is still counting before I proceed. And at once my mind is blank. There are so many things in my head to say that one moment I'm choking on them all and the next I'm amnesiac.

"I miss you so much." Those first few words slip out. I search my head for more but it seems disconnected from the rest of me. The silence seems long and stretching now but just knowing he's on the other end makes me near deaf. And then just when I fear he might hang up since I'm not saying anything, all at once the words come gushing forth, and I allow them, not caring how desperate I might sound.

"Please come back. I know you don't want to talk to me and I'm sorry that I can't not talk to you but I need you to know that nothing here is right. When you left me for two weeks then I was crumbling. I'm not crumbling anymore, I'm dust. We all are. I can't sleep or eat or focus or function and, permit me to be selfish, but I really can't find myself anymore without you. Call me whatever you want, but it's a truth that I can't help. All I want is one day. Just come back to me for one day. Please."

I strain my ears now for any sound at all, background noise, even the faintest draw of breath but there's nothing. Then there's the beep of termination. He hung up.