He was pulled off on the side of the road to tie the tarp back down in the bed of his truck when the phone rang. He locked eyes with her photo on the screen. Eyes that brought him so much joy now looked back at him with judgement in every pixel. The picture spoke a thousand words to him. Words he practiced responding to in his mind, trying to think of an excuse for his disappearance. He knew she would call sooner or later. Not because she cared he wasn’t there, but because she wanted to know why he wasn’t there. Only the lonely will know the difference. His time was up. He took a deep breath and answered the call.
“Hey, Cecilia,” he said, pretending everything was fine.
“Hi,” she replied with a feigned calmness, “Where are you? I haven’t heard from you all day.”
“I’m just taking a drive to clear my mind,” he said to stall her suspicion for as long as he could. After hours of driving, he still didn’t know how to explain where he was going and why.
“What are you up to?” he quickly followed up.
“I just got home from helping my brother. I’m making dinner to take to my mom’s, so if you get back in the next thirty minutes, that’s where I’ll be. I just called to let you know,” she said strangely.
“Okay. I won’t be back before you get home from your mom’s house, but thanks for letting me know,” he replied.
“That’s fine. Is there anything you want to tell me?” she asked apprehensively.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so. Why?” he said as casually as possible.
“I don’t know, like that you’re 130 miles away right now!” she blurted out. He forgot that they share locations on their phones. What a stupid thing to overlook. He knew that she watched him, but it never mattered before since he never tried to hide his location in the past.
“Oh, so that’s why you called,” he said defensively, trying to derail the moment, “I’m surprised you even noticed that I was gone today.
“Of course I noticed! I didn’t even hear you get up this morning. I don’t usually check your location. Well, not too often, but I did today randomly, and I’m glad I did! Where are you going, and when were you going to tell me?”
“I just wanted to take a little drive, so I got on SR-104 and just kept going South. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t plan to be gone this long. I just.. never turned around,” he said realizing how stupid and unbelievable he sounded.
“Whatever you’re going through, we can talk about it when you get home, but if you don’t turn around now it’ll be too late in the afternoon to talk. I have to get into work early tomorrow, but I’m all yours tonight. Oh, actually I forgot to tell you, I’m helping a friend with something when I leave my mom’s tonight. So actually, let’s just talk about it tomorrow after work,” she said in one, long sentence.
“I don’t think I’m going to turn around tonight,” he said.
“What do you mean? Just turn around,” she chided him.
“What’s the difference if I’m home tonight or tomorrow night? If you never checked my location and saw I wasn’t somewhere you didn’t expect, then I wouldn’t have heard from you until tonight anyway.
“You’re being ridiculous, and I don’t have time for this right now,” she said in genuine disbelief, “Why are you telling me this from so far away instead of talking to me face-to-face? Are you seeing someone new behind my back?”
“Yeah, I’m seeing someone new,” he said sheepishly.
“I knew it! I knew that’s why you were being so distant lately. You were cheating on me!” she said tearfully.
“No, Cecilia, you are the new woman I’m seeing.”
“You’re cheating on your actual girlfriend with me?” she screamed through the tears.
“I’m talking about you! This new version of you I’ve been dealing with isn’t the same woman that I first fell in love with,” he yelled back.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about! I’m exactly the same as the day you met me!” she reassured him.
“I don’t get to see you anymore because you’re so busy making everyone else happy. You break yourself down into tiny pieces and pass them out like it’s Halloween. Then, when I finally do have your attention, you’re too exhausted to even say anything to me.
“You care too much about what others think of you, and not enough about how it’s affecting us. Nobody else has to worry about you disappearing like I do. No one worries about offending you because there aren’t any consequences for them. If I offend you, we will stop talking for days.
“You wouldn’t say no to someone else’s summon if your life depended on it, well I’m here to tell you, our life together depends on it. I’m driving through neighboring states for no logical reason, and you want to wait until tomorrow to figure it out? That sums up why I’ve been feeling so off lately,” he said, rolling down the window.
“I know you’ve been feeling off, and I’ve been asking you why, but you keep telling me you’re okay,” she said with clear frustration.
“The truth is, I’ve been scared that if I gave you an ultimatum, you’d pick everyone else over me because my attention could never outweigh the endless sea of it you keep swimming in. I just want you for myself, but I’ve never really had you at all. I can’t believe that after all the time I’ve given you, picking up your heart when the world kept stomping it out, you thought, no were certain a moment ago, that I was cheating on you,” he said with an air of melancholy.
“You know how much I love you. Of course I want to settle down and start a family like we talked about, but so many people need me right now,” she retorted.
“The people you’re helping need to learn to help themselves. It’s not your job to chorale them and keep them on the straight and narrow. Mostly they just cause problems, and I don’t know how you don’t see that,” he said.
“I know there have been problems, but I don’t start the problems,” she said, more frustrated than before.
“You don’t start the problems, but you don’t avoid the people that cause them either. Every week together is another turned corner where I hit my head against the wall of the problems you won’t remove yourself from. Every day is a new crisis just as uniquely different from the last one. No two days are accountably the same. I have been living in your chaos, begging you to escape it at all costs, but you patiently wait for never,” he said, slowly lowering his voice.
“I’m sorry that I thought you were cheating on me, really I am, but everything else you said is simply not true. I’ll cancel on my friend, just please, come back home. We can talk about everything tonight, but I do really have to go now to make it to my mom’s on time,” she said in nearly a whisper.
“I’ve done all that I could to show you that I’m here for you no matter what happened, but I think I’m enabling our destruction. I would do anything for you, but to you, I’m just another project. Another thing that fills time in your planner. I’m just one of another source of attention you need, on equal footing with everything else. I’m just the distraction of the day. I’m a puzzle to piece together in your spare time to keep you from having to sit in silence and reflect on yourself. It’s time for you to take a long look inside, but tonight I’m not going to be there to hold up the mirror. I just need a break from my world being upside down,” he said, totally drained.
He felt justified for his response, but he felt remorse, and certainly felt no relief. He was so focused on deciphering the silence that he didn’t notice that a grey car had pulled-off the road behind him on the shoulder. When Cecilia finally spoke again, a woman was already half-way up to his rolled-down truck window.
“It seems you’ve made up your mind,” Cecilia continued, struggling to get the words out, “I didn’t know you felt this way, and again, I’m sorry I even considered for a moment that you’d cheat on me. I know we can work this out, but please come back as soon as you can. I’ll work on changing my schedule, I’ll do anything you want, but please give me the time to show you.”
Her voice broke him up too much. She couldn’t help any of this, and he should have mentioned all of this before it got to this point. As he was about to tell Cecilia that he was sorry and turning back around, the woman from the grey car cut-in.
“Hey, you okay hun?” she asked with concern.
“Is that a woman’s voice I just heard?” Cecilia spat out, “I can’t believe you. Never call me again.” With that, she ended the call.
-R.P.D. Sanders