You Won’t Take My Call
A new insert into Fragments of Fiction. Looks like I fell a bit short again of finishing Nanowrimo, but that is ok. If you search the Fragments of Fiction entry you’ll find at least 100 posts, but here are links to the ones that I worked on for Nanowrimo.
Who Broke Your Heart- Things You Might Not Know
The End of a Marriage
A 21st Century Break Up
“I Don’t Want To Kiss My Husband Ever Again”
Once Upon A Time
Hanging Out With Hairy
I Will Never Fall In Love Again
Anyhoo, I think that I might try to continue this story in this post.
“Hello. How are you?
Have you been alright, through all those lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely nights
That’s what I’d say. I’d tell you everything
If you’d pick up that telephone yeah yeah yeah
Hey. How you feelin?
Are you still the same?
Don’t you realize the things we did, we did, were all for real, not a dream?
I just can’t believe
They’ve all faded out of view yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah”
Telephone Line – ELO
You need to understand that I am the sort of writer that flings himself into his work. It is similar to those method actors who think that the best way to play a particular role is to go learn everything they can about it. The difference is that I don’t do it this because of a particular methodology or anything like that. I do it because that is just who I am.
I do it because I don’t know how else to write other than to sort of pour myself into it. That is why I tend to do these sorts of feature pieces, because I like not having to worry about blurring the lines. I just write and worry about the details afterwards.
I walked into the office and the receptionist told me that Harold was on the telephone. I nodded and smiled at her and made my way back towards his office. She knew better than to tell me to wait. On the way over I made a point of grabbing a handful of rubber bands and paper clips off of the nearest desk. I figured that if I was going to have to wait for him I’d entertain myself.
This leads to a helpful safety tip, don’t let me get bored. I get into far too much trouble. No one wants to deal with 220 pounds of five year-old, especially Harold who had the good sense to try and lock the office door as I approached.
Of course I had anticipated this and made a point of jamming my foot into the door. He glared at me and gestured for me to sit down and be quiet. I could tell by his expression that he was waiting for me to do something. He wasn’t sure what, but he knew from experience that I never left without antagonizing him in some manner or another.
I suppose that you could argue that this behavior is juvenile, idiotic and that it doesn’t lend itself to making him treat me better. You would be correct. But it would also be correct to say that Harold is a know it all who is a major pain in the ass. I could be on my best behavior and he’d find a dozen ways to irk me. So I figure if I have to deal with his nonsense he should share some of mine.
For a moment I pretended that he had crushed my foot in the door and hammed up a bad limp. He rolled his eyes at me and pointed at a chair. So I pointed at the ceiling. When he looked up I pointed at the window, than the wall and the bookcase. It had all the trimmings of a mighty fine game, except Harold didn’t play. He ignored me and continued his telephone conversation.
So I sat down on the chair and mulled over various uses for the rubber band and paper clips, none of which included their intended use. My desire to engage in mischief was interrupted by the buzzing of my cellphone. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the Caller ID.
It was my daughter. I almost didn’t answer it.There was no doubt that no matter what was going on she was going to ask me if I had called her yet. Her being the lost love from my past. Moments like this made me believe that perhaps karma was real. My daughter’s hair could be on fire, she could be moments from driving off of a cliff and she would still find a way to ask.
In short, the damn girl was a major pain-in-the-ass who was far too much like her father for her own good. And without a doubt I was far too crazy about my little girl not to answer the phone, even if it meant having to be grilled about things that were better left forgotten.
That was the thing, she just didn’t understand that even though I might still carry a torch for this woman, it didn’t mean that I wanted to revisit it. It was an incredibly painful part of my past. I hadn’t realized how painful it was until she and the girls had brought it up. They thought that it was great, that this was an opportunity for romance that shouldn’t be passed up.
I wish that they would have left well enough alone. If they wanted drama they could watch Oprah or Dr. Phil. Wasn’t that Lifetime channel full of stories like this.
The problem was that now she was always on my mind. The memories had been flowing back. Some of them were  incredible. They were among the happiest and the saddest times of my life. There had never been anyone who I had loved more or known more intimately.There had never been anyone who could really compared to her.
She had said the same thing about me. She had looked me in the eye and told me that I was the love of her life, her best friend and the greatest lover she had ever had. That last part made me smile again. I am a man, what can I say, we all want to be Casanova.
But the thing was that I knew she wasn’t saying it to make me feel good. She meant it. She believed it. And yet here we were living separate lives. Two people who had believed that they were soul mates. One soul shared by two people we had said.
She had cut things off with me. Told me that she loved me and that no one else had her heart, but said that we couldn’t be together. I fought it. Told her that it was stupid to give up and walk away. Told her that only an idiot and a fool would give up what we had.
She told me that we had missed our window and that it wouldn’t work. I argued, but she wouldn’t give. Eventually we reached a point where she wouldn’t take my call. I didn’t understand. It just didn’t make sense to me how we could go from a place where we couldn’t stand to be separated to one in which we couldn’t talk.
I was dumbfounded by it all. I couldn’t believe that it would last. I was certain that sooner or later she would come to her senses. Periodically I would try reaching out to her, but she never took the call. Over time I grew angry and bitter about it.
I tried to embrace the anger thinking that it would make it easier to forget her and walk away. But it never did work. A friend once said she was a bitch and that I was better off. When he saw the look in my eyes he apologized and asked me not to hit him.
That was a revelation of sorts to me. I was shocked by how angry I was at someone calling my girl a name. I couldn’t bring myself to do it and I sure wasn’t going to let anyone else.
It took a while, a long while but I slowly found ways to get beyond it all. Over time I stopped thinking about her as the one and forced myself to be open to the possibility of another. I won’t lie and say that I stopped thinking about her completely. But I did reach a point where it wasn’t top of mind.
I thought that meant that I was over her. I thought that it meant that I was ready to be with someone else, or at least I convinced myself of it. But apparently I was wrong.
I let out a loud sigh and put the phone to my ear and heard my daughter say, “hi daddy. We need to talk.” A silent groan escaped my lips and I sighed again. I was afraid to imagine what this was about and braced myself for her response.
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