I’ve checked my phone a million times per day, always trying to make sure I’ve got bars. I’ve gone as far as dismantling and restarting my cell daily, trying to make sure it works properly, and I never go to bed without plugging it in to charge, I don’t care how much Veronica ribs me for it.
I’ve woken up from countless dreams of ringing phones, but in real life, my phone hasn’t rung once, not with a call, or a text or even a voicemail. Nothing.
I’ve tried to call many times over the course of the last two months, but Wyatt’s phone just doesn’t ring at all or goes to voicemail and I don’t have Jonny’s number, so I don’t know what to do.
I’ve been scouring the web trying to get info on possible Rangers’ ops, but whatever Wyatt is doing, there are no traces online of it, and since I don’t know any details I can’t begin to make sense of the news I do find regarding our country’s military presence in the Middle East.
I don’t know what to think, how to feel, but Veronica says I’m crazy to even have the slightest doubt about what’s going on: she says there’s no way something happened to him, she thinks he’s not calling because he did what players do, played me.
She says he took a look at me and could see I was still a virgin and filled my head with romantic notions to get in my pants.
She says so many things I don’t want to believe.
I can’t, I just can’t.
My vision blurs with tears as my eyes come away from the window and go to the screen of the phone clasped in my hand. My wallpaper is a picture of me and Wyatt splashing in the shallow water, laughing as he twirls me around.
Jonny took that picture and that day, he told me he had never seen his best friend so happy and carefree. Not since they were teens and he thanked me for loving him.
A single tear rolls down my cheek.
I haven’t called Wyatt’s number in a few days now.
I’ve been lacking the courage to retry because I’ve gotten at a point where I have to wonder if him answering would actually be a good thing.
What if Veronica is right?
What if he tells me all his promises were lies, what if the story he said he wanted so much to live with me turns out to be nothing but an empty fairytale he couldn’t wait to leave behind?
More tears join that first one over my cheeks, my heart squeezing painfully at the thought.
I see Wyatt’s face in my mind’s eye, the absolute certainty in his gaze as he told me he loved me more than anything and that even if it wasn’t fair of him to ask me to, he needed me to wait for him because he just knew we could have it all.
How can I doubt those words?
How can I doubt him when everything felt so real to me?
When I knew with every cell in my body that he was telling me the truth?
How can I go against my heart when it still begs me to wait?
But how can I go against reason when he hasn’t called once?
But what if something bad happened to him?
What if he’s— No!
I shake my head.
Mustn’t go there. Can’t go there ever. There’s too much pain there.
I take a breath and swipe over the screen.
It doesn’t matter that I’m scared right now, scared of being wrong and scared of being right too: I can’t be a coward, I have to try again.
My finger shakes when I bring up the call log and tap on his name.
The phone rings once and then there’s a click and a voice.
I feel a millisecond-length moment of hope and then it gets shattered in a million pieces.
‘We are sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again…’
My breath lodges in my throat and I slowly slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, legs pressed to my chest, the little Army Bear Wyatt surprised me with once staring at me from the bed, his black little eyes as empty as I feel right now.
My brain cannot catch up with what my ears just heard.
What does it mean?
Why has the number been disconnected?
Why would he do this?
The phone falls from my cold, shaking hands and I burst into loud sobs, my head on my knees as my shoulders shake and my body grows numb.
The door to my bedroom falls open and slams against the wall.
I jump a little and look up.
Veronica is standing in the middle of my room with a sleeping mask hanging from one ear and a pissed-off look in her green eyes.
“What in the hell is going on here? What’s with the crying?”
I try to speak and my voice comes out in a croak as I sniffle. “I tried to call Wyatt again and… I don’t know… it looks like his number got disconnected. Do you think…? What if he—? What if something happened to him? What—?”
“Are you freaking kidding me?!”
My roommate looks down at me and then she shakes her head and starts laughing, her callousness as harsh as a slap across my face.
“I can’t believe you’re still on his dick after what he pulled! Wake the fuck up, girl! I mean, OMG, it’s bad enough that you were as stupid as to give him your cherry after guarding it like a prized possession for these many years, always going on with that ‘oh no, I don’t sleep around, I’m waiting for the one’ crap and feeling better than the rest of us who know how to have some fun. See where it got you?! Men are all the same, sweetie: they’re utter pigs and just waiting for naive little girls like you to fall for their BS and that’s exactly what happened here. There’s nothing the matter with him, I assure you. He’s probably lying poolside somewhere. I bet he and his wingman didn’t have to be deployed at all. He was probably already thinking about his next fuck while he was sweet-talking you into waiting for him and here you are, crying your eyes out, sitting on the floor like a pitiful lump. It was bad enough that you decided to stay in that little one-horse town to be is fucktoy for a week, but to actually believe he is going to call you after two months with no word from him? How stupid can you be, darling? I mean, I’m telling you, grow the fuck up and stop it with your moping and woe-is-me atty. Some of us can’t stand all this negativity, you know?! But no, you don’t care, do you? You’re so selfish and self-absorbed, you don’t care about anyone but yourself and your precious lover boy who’s probably balls-deep in some bitch right this moment!”
I look up at her in shock. Over the last few weeks, she’s been acting almost gleefully in the face of my increasing despair and worry, but this little speech fucking takes the cake and I’ve fucking had it.
No more good little girl.
No more understanding.
No more second chances to assholes.
I’m fucking done and so is she.
I shakily stand and calmly walk up to her. “Fuck off, Veronica. Try and fucking learn how to be a human being, will you? Don’t you know not to kick people while they’re down?”