Page 3 of Letters to Lily

“Now, we need to get you pulled together, because you cannot miss class tomorrow!”

By nine o’clock, I was feeling better, even as my anxiety was skyrocketing with every minute gone by that I didn’t hear from Kade. Kristin was doing a damn good job of keeping my brain occupied for the night. We played stupid games, watched horrible movies that we could make fun of, and any other mindless entertainment she could think of. We also binged on fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. Then my phone rang. I dove for it, expecting to see Kade’s name and face appear on the screen. Instead, I saw ‘unknown caller’.

I answered and was greeted by a weird recording about how I could help the starving kids in some third world country. I hung up. My phone rang again immediately, this time it was the Police Benevolence Association, or some such, asking for donations. On it went, until I finally got fed up, and around midnight I turned my phone off. By then, I had at least one odd call for every five minutes and my texts had blown up with crazy messages about erectile dysfunction, and a prince, in some country I never heard of, needing me to allow him to deposit money into my bank account.

“What in the world?” Kristin had asked me. I had no answers. “We’ll leave early and hit up tech support in the morning, if it’s still doing that.” I agreed, and then took my exhausted, emotionally drained butt to bed. I also thanked my lucky stars that I had been able to keep the cookies and ice cream down instead of bringing them back up the same way I had my breakfast that morning.

“Yeah, her phone is going nuts,” Kristin was telling the tech guys when I finally tuned back into what was going on around me. “Hand them your phone, Sash.” I thought I had seen Jason, Kade’s roommate, running across the quad, and I had nearly dashed out after him, but he was gone before I could even move.

I obligingly placed my phone in one of the tech guy’s hands, after turning it back on so they could see all the calls and texts coming in. “Damn!” One of the guys said as the other whistled. “Someone doesn’t like you very much.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve only seen this happen to someone once before, and there’s really no fixing it. The phone company will probably have to retire that number for a while too. This girl pissed off a sorority, and they added her phone number and e-mail to every spam sight they could, causing her to get a flurry of calls, texts, and spam e-mail like this.” He looked up from my phone then. “Might want to check your e-mail as soon as possible too. Make sure you check both the school issued one and your private e-mails.”

“Damn it. Who the hell would do something like this? I don’t even…”

Kristin was laughing. “She never pisses anyone off. Hell, I think the last person she pissed off was a boy in fourth grade when she punched him in the nose.” It was almost ironic that Kristin brought up the same memory I had just been thinking of yesterday, but it was true. I tended to avoid drama and people who caused it like the plague.

“Well, honestly, it’s the only explanation for something like this happening. Your number was tossed out to the universe and the universe was happy to abuse it.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Besides change your number and probably your e-mail addresses? Not really. Also, you might want to be careful who you give the new info to, and maybe even have your number set to private so that people can’t get it from caller ID.”

I was pouting now as the guys handed me my phone back. They had thankfully turned it off for me before doing so. “I guess I’ll be heading to the phone store after class. Will you tag along with me?” I asked Kristin as we maneuvered beyond the throngs of kids waiting for the free tech support in the student store.

“Of course, but for now, you better get to class before Professor Dan locks you out.” I looked down at my watch and saw she was right.

“Meet you here in an hour?” Kristin nodded as we headed our separate ways. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to change my phone number, on top of everything else.

Chapter 2

April 28

I shoved my t-shirts haphazardly into my duffle bag. I couldn’t believe my mother would ever think it was a good idea to sell her house, move to Nevada, and think she could start fresh with my philanderer of a father. He’d left us for his secretary, who was only three years older than I was, when I was a junior in high school. He’d picked up and high tailed it back to Nevada with his new girlfriend who, rumor had it; he’d managed to knock up. Apparently, he’d been diddling her long enough that it was questionable whether there had been any laws broken by the act. The fact that I never actually heard about a baby brother or sister either said a lot about the type of person my dad was or dispelled the rumors. Honestly, there was no telling which of those things was true.

Here I was about to hop on the “crazy plane” to go save my mom from herself, possibly meet a half-sister or brother I wasn’t aware I had, and maybe if I was lucky, I could drop kick my dad into another reality where he couldn’t hurt our family anymore.

“Hey man,” I called out to my roommate, Jason, when I heard him come through the front door of our apartment.

“Yeah, what’s up?” He called before he walked into my room and saw the shit storm I’d cycled through while trying to pack on the fly. “Aw man,” he huffed out dejectedly. “She’s got you moving out without notice now, bro?”

I rolled my eyes, well aware that Jason overheard some of my argument the night before with Sasha. I wanted her to move in with me starting next semester, and she refused to live with me while Jason still lived there. He was home and there was no doubt he could hear through the thin walls of our apartment, but I had hoped to be able to talk to him about new living arrangements after I hashed things out with my girlfriend. That hadn’t happened yet. I had been giving us both time to cool down until I got the frantic call from my mother about everything going to hell in a hand basket across the country.

In my mind, I owed Jason so much. He’d been there and helped me smooth over the mess my dad left behind when we were in high school. “Nah, man, my mom went off the deep end. My asshole of a father convinced her to sell the house here and move out there so they could try again.”

“Shit man, so he needs money and she’s a sucker still, huh?”

“Pretty much,” I heaved out a sigh. “I have to go get her and bring her back, hopefully before she hands over all of her money to the prick.” I stuffed my pants into my bag as I continued talking. “We do need to talk about the roommate situation when I get back though. I plan on asking her to marry me, man. I can’t start a marriage with a roommate in the house too.” I watched as Jason’s face fell. While I felt I owed him for helping me out all those years ago, I think I was all he had left in the world.

His dad had run out on him when he was young, and his mom died shortly after. Jason had been living in a group home when we first became friends in high school. I knew I was the closest thing to family he had, but he had to understand that even biological families move out. That didn’t mean they didn’t keep in touch.

I tried to soften the blow. “Don’t worry, it won’t be anything immediate. I was going to move her in this summer, but it would probably be better to wait for fall semester when the lease is up on this place. That way, if you need to find a smaller place, or another roommate, it won’t be as crazy a transition. It also gives us both time to find a place.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jason replied before heading into my en-suite bathroom.

“Hey,” I called out once I finished packing the rest of my clothes. “Is my phone in there? I need to jet or I’m gonna miss my flight and I still need to call Sasha and let her know what’s up. Hell, I probably need to charge my damn phone too by now.”

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