Page 56 of The Cadence
I reminded myself of something important: he wasn’t running away from me, because I’d never really had him to begin with. I felt just as stupid as that day in the parking lot when I’d yelled that I loved him. I felt just as hollowed out, but that was ridiculous. I wasn’t the girl crying in a bathroom stall anymore. I had a nice bed in a beautiful house where I could cry much more comfortably, so even though it was well before I usually went to sleep, I headed upstairs. I put on the t-shirt that he’d given me and then I bawled into my pillow.
When I woke up, there were several notifications on my phone. Four were voicemails from Will and he had texted six times, too, and he seemed to get more worried with each message. “I’m not going to call the police again,” he had written, “but please answer me.”
“I went to bed early,” I wrote back now, and almost immediately, I got a response.
“I want to hear your voice.” My phone rang, and this time I answered it.
“Hi, Will.”
“Hello, Calla.”
“I’m ok,” I promised. “I’m totally fine.”
“I’m glad.” He sighed. “I’m sorry that I acted crazy. I know you can take care of yourself.”
And I knew how worried he got. Even if he had been off with his ex, he wouldn’t have forgotten about me. “I’m sorry, too,” I answered. “I should have told you what I was doing.”
“No. This is my problem to deal with.” He paused and then he said, “I’m going to make an appointment with a doctor when I get back.”
“You are?”
“Are you happy about that?” he asked.
“I’m very, very happy about that,” I admitted. “I’ve been wanting you to so much but I’ve been trying not to push.”
“You’ve mentioned it at least once a day, and usually more,” Will said, and that was probably true.
“Was that annoying?”
“It bothered me to see how much it bothered you. It made me realize that it was a bigger problem than I’d been letting myself admit,” he said. “Last night, I was sitting in my hotel room and sweating because I couldn’t reach you. That’s not a metaphor, I was actually overheating with nerves, and I realized that I can’t act like that. It’s not fair to you. I can’t put that much pressure on you.”
“It’s not fair to you, to feel so anxious,” I told him.
“I don’t feel anxious,” he disagreed. “I felt like I needed to know where you were, and I felt like something terrible had happened to you.”
“In other words, you had anxiety. I’m so sorry that I did that to you the night before a game! Did you get any sleep at all?”
He didn’t answer the question. “That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you. This isn’t something that you’re doing wrong. What’s wrong is how I’m reacting to normal behavior.”
“Please say that you got enough sleep.”
“I’ll be fine,” he answered instead, and then he had to go. I feverishly turned on the old guy radio show that everyone here listened to, “Woodsman Football with Herb and Buzz.” Not that they would be able to report on Will’s sleep patterns, but I listened closely for any information that would help or hurt him.
“You’re twitchy,” Cully announced when I walked into the grocery store for my shift.
He was right, and I was. I had almost called in sick because I had worked myself up to such a state of worry, and over what? Will’s lack of rest? He was a professional and he could handle it. He’d played his whole senior year of high school with broken phalanges, for goodness sake! Or was I upset about him spending time with his ex?
I was sure about one thing: I was still mad at Cully. I shrugged slightly as an answer to his question and turned my back on him.
“Uh, Calla, I’m sorry,” he said.
I glanced over my shoulder. “For what?”
“For talking about Kirsten’s kitty, for one thing.” He didn’t say kitty. “For talking about having sex with her, and then for telling you that you’re jealous and that you should go sleep with Will.”
“I think you told me to go fuck him,” I recalled, and his shoulders hunched.
“I was also mouthy with my mom last night and she got real mad. She took away my gaming laptop and yelled at me for a while, and then she told me to go to my room. That sucked without my laptop,” he lamented.
