Silence
A phone call remains silent after two friends won’t apologize to each other.
I listened to her shallow breathing on the other end of the phone call. So far she hadn’t said anything — neither had I. I had waited for her apology, long enough for the sun to set and the stars to sprinkle across the night sky.
A cough — worse than a cat hacking a hairball — crackled against my ear. I welcomed the small break from silence, even if it had shattered my eardrum. Once Patty’s cough subsided, silence crept out of the speakers, tangling its useless fingers on my neck.
A nervous habit since our childhood, she tapped her fingers against the phone. Before our fight, I could block out the noise or tease her a bit, just as she did when I bit my nails. Listening to her made my heart ache, reminding me of what I had lost. Usually, we spent our summers laughing until our throats ache (we always laughed after watching a bad CGI movie). But those days would never come again unless Patty apologized.
Whatever we had fought about had been erased from our memories. Just like a freshly erased chalkboard, the memory left its trace marks in our minds. Why had Patty not resolved everything with a simple apology? Anytime we fought, she was the first to back down and acknowledge what she did wrong. She always glued back the broken pieces. How could she leave everything in a shattered mess?
Lightning flashed across the window. I jumped as the house shook, dropping my phone on my foot. When I grabbed the phone, I realized Patty had ended the call.
I thought of calling her back. Maybe this one time I could take the fall instead of her. We would still have a chance to shop for our new back-to-school outfits before the next semester began. As I went to our messages, my fingers froze against the screen.
If Medusa had entered my room, she would’ve believed she had already turned me into one of her priceless statues. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t send the text.
I’m sorry.
A simple phrase, but one with more weight upon it than I had ever realized. A phrase I had never muttered once to Patty. It felt simple. Too easy. So why couldn’t I send it now? It would’ve been easier diving in the ocean to find the lost city of Atlantis than uttering an apology.
Another wave of silence slammed through the bedroom walls. Each breath hurt as I tried to swallow the air, but my lungs stayed empty. I held tight on my phone, hoping it would keep me afloat. But the waves kept coming, waiting to drown me.
My heart begged for an apology; proof I had done nothing wrong. Patty had to apologize sooner or later. Until then, I would welcome silence as my only friend.
Bella Smith’s Moody Monday prompt about a silent phone call inspired “Silence.”
https://medium.com/promptly-written/prompt-yourself-weekly-prompts-november-20-26-da396ed6533e
