Page 54 of Edge of Unbroken

“Hey, sorry, you missed me. But obviously you’ve done this before, so you know what to do. And if you don’t, well, figure it out,” Cat’s voicemail answers, and I smile at her sass. I almost hang up at the beep just so I can redial her number and listen to her voice again, but I take a deep breath instead and start talking.

“Hi baby, sorry to call you so late or… early in the middle of the freaking week, but I had the opportunity to leave you a quick message and I didn’t want to pass it up. I just wanted to tell you that… I miss you so much, it hurts. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m counting the minutes until Sunday. I love you so much, Cat. God, I fucking love you. I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon, baby. Have a good day at school. Tell everyone I said hi. I love you. Bye,” I ramble and hang up the phone.

I stand for a second, still contemplating calling her again, listening to her message once more, but I decide against it because I really don’t want to wake Cat. So I open the creaky truck door, clamber back into the warm cabin, and hand Miranda her phone back.

She lifts her hips to replace her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. “Did you pour your heart out?”

“As much as you can in ten seconds, I guess.” I cup my hands in front of my mouth and blow, letting my warm breath thaw my already-frozen fingers. God damn these Montana winter nights. “I should get back to the ranch.” I glance at Miranda. “My grandfather is going to walk into my room to ‘wake me’”—I make air quotes around the words—“in an hour. I should at least pretend to be asleep when he walks in.”

“Always the good boy,” Miranda chuckles, but nonetheless obliges.

“I’m playing a set at Sterling’s on Saturday,” Miranda says after rolling up quietly to the barn. “Stop by if you can manage to get away.” She leans across the bench seat and kisses me softly on the cheek. “See you around, Rony.”

“See you around, Randi,” I say, get out of the truck, and trudge the fifty yards through the snow back to the house.

Cat

I wake up in a panic knowing full well that I’ve overslept. My mom didn’t get home until I was already in bed after Drew dropped me off last night, then she left again early this morning. And for some reason unbeknownst to me, I slept right through my alarm. I get dressed and ready for school with only minutes to spare before the ding of my phone alerts me that Vada is outside in her car to pick me up.

“You don’t give me relaxed morning vibes,” Vada says when I slide into her passenger seat, sweaty and out of breath despite the sub-freezing temperatures outside.

“That’s because I’m not having a relaxing morning.” I throw my backpack in the backseat and buckle my seatbelt. “I overslept.”

“Well, you made it, so you can take a deep breath now and relax on our very exciting five-minute drive to school,” Vada jokes half-heartedly.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket, ready to silence it in anticipation of the school day. “I’ll try. How was the movie last night?”

Vada doesn’t get the chance to respond before I notice a missed call.

“Oh, I have a call from a Montana number,” I say, confused yet excited at the same time. “It can’t be Ran; it’s only Thursday?”

“Message?” Vada asks simply.

I nod, then press the speaker button to retrieve the voicemail.

“Hi baby, sorry to call you so late or… early in the middle of the freaking week, but I had the opportunity to leave you a quick message and I didn’t want to pass it up. I just wanted to tell you that… I miss you so much, it hurts. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m counting the minutes until Sunday. I love you so much, Cat. God, I fucking love you. I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon, baby. Have a good day at school. Tell everyone I said hi. I love you. Bye,” Ronan rattles off, and my smile gets bigger with each word.

“When the hell did he call you?” Vada asks with a big grin on her face.

I check my call log. “Just before four this morning.”

“Jeez,” Vada groans, “why is he up at that time?”

“He usually gets up at three-thirty anyways,” I say. “That’s when they start their day out there.”

“Seriously?” Her eyes are wide, her tone incredulous.

I nod. “Yeah, didn’t Steve ever tell you about life in Montana?”

“No, not really. I guess I haven’t asked him,” she says. There’s something sad in her voice, but I don’t get to ask her about it. “You should call him back,” she says. “Right now.”

“I can’t do that,” I say, shaking my head.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re only allowed to talk on Sundays, and I already broke the rules when I called him on New Year’s Eve.”

She’s well aware of the restrictions that have been imposed on Ronan’s communications with me because I’ve complained about them a hundred times. I love talking with Ronan; Sundays are my favorite day of the week, but I miss being able to call or text him any time my heart, body, or mind yearn for him, which, let’s face it, is most of the day. It’s especially hard when I have exciting, happy, sad, or annoying things I want to share with him and I don’t have a way of doing it.

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