Sippanont Samchai via Compfight
It took me four hours to work up the courage, and another 30 minutes to find my phone.
My mind these days, I swear.
My fingers are sweating, but I manage to punch in the number. I swallow a lump and, after a deep breath, work up the courage to hit the last digit. The number four completes the first leg of my impossible journey, and it’s out of my control now.
My breath leaves me.
One ring. I bite my bottom lip.
Two rings. I start to feel my pulse in my throat.
Three rings. Will I get her voicemail again? Part of me hopes so. I die to hear her voice.
“Hello?”
Nope. Her real, unrecorded, breathy voice meets my ear. It’s so beautiful it makes me ache.
I panic and say nothing.
“Hello?” she says again, patiently.
I get it out quickly: “I know it’s been a long time. I…I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry for what I did to hurt you. I don’t have much time left, and I want you to know that I love you. I always, always have. Even when I didn’t act like it.”
A moment of painstaking silence passes, and not a fiber in my body moves.
“Hello?” she says, one more time. “Is someone there? I don’t recognize this number.” Finally, she hangs up the phone and I hear the terminal beep. My heart races.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll work up the courage to take my phone off of mute.
But then again, maybe tomorrow I’ll be dead.