The Phone is Ringing

It was nice talking to you... Yes, maybe I will see you soon... Oh- that's sweet of you... You too... OK. Bye.

That last 'bye' is spoken like the distance between it and when we would see one another again was unbearably vast.

I snap my phone closed and turn towards the woman sitting next to me. We've been together for a while, but the look on her face tells me that the nature of our relationship is about to change.

"How is She?" There isn't anger there, but there isn't curiosity either. Only a hint of sorrow- like one of those flavors hidden in a nice wine.

The problem with the question is that the answer is unimportant. No matter what I say, things are going to be bad, and yet I still have to answer. I know the response before I even know what I am going to say.

The best thing that could have happened would have been if there was no question. If the sound of my phone snapping shut didn't stab the moment, but rather signaled the resumption of our intimacy as if I had just talked to someone of no consequence. But that didn't happen. Our moment is gone.

"She's doing well," honesty and policy. I begin to rapidly recount Her end of the conversation, but I've been infected by Her rambles. I try as hard as I can to spin our similarities as something other than similarities, but I know what I am saying sounds like.

It sounds like we grew into adulthood together, that we were each other's first love, that we've known each other for a decade. It sounds like we are the closest two people to ever live on separate coasts.

But the part that isn't understood is the Bob Barker part. Closest two people, without going over. We will never spill into one another as we once did. We have been back to the well and the water was like poison to us. We never said as much, but we both know that we know it was.

The problem is, as my rambling is almost complete, that the silence across from me- so far away now, though she hasn't moved- doesn't know, and will never know, that. I've been nothing but truthful, but I know if I told her, she would hear a lie. I know, because she asked the question to begin with.

I finish and start probing her eyes with mine. I am looking- hoping- for love there.

Here comes the flood of disbelief, jealousy, and anger. Here it is, all wrapped up in a nice little package.

"That's nice."

"It IS nice, isn't it?" I've worked myself up at this point. Quite uncharacteristically.

The silence is stunned.

"You know, if She were He, you would actually be interested in what I said, but instead you sit there and feign indifference. I'm here, with you, and happy. Happy for what we have, and eager for what we could have. Your passive aggressiveness is killing me."

I go on, but over the tirade I hear the phone ring. I continue through it.

It rings and rings, but I am red with passion. I care. I'm emotive. I'm so red that the silent, stunned face has faded. I can't see it, and I don't really care. But there's something weird about the ringing. Seems so far away...

And a voice. A calm, inquisitive voice. So familiar. But it is with the phone, so far away...

I rage on and on, explaining everything about She and I there is to know. I explain how it will never work. The silence is gone by now, and all is red. But I can still hear that distant phone and voice. Is it getting closer?

Suddenly, I feel a jolt. The red drops away to reveal the silence with her hand gently on my shoulder.

"Hey goofy- you nodded off- answer your phone."

I pick it up; She is calling. I don't answer. I wait until it stops ringing and turn it off. She knows I'm home tonight, but I also know that She knows why I didn't answer.

"Sorry about that."

"Don't be," she says softly, calmly, with tired affection. "Maybe it isn't such a bad idea." She moves me onto my back and rests her head on my shoulder as we run our legs down the couch together.

She's asleep first, and as I am falling back again, I realize that she didn't even ask me who it was.