The crack on his phone screen was minimal at first, hardly even noticeable. You could just barely see it if you tilted it at a certain angle. It rarely bothered him, until, one day, the crack splintered into another, more visible offshoot. Even this wasn't enough to make him feel any great sense of irritation, but it was enough to make him bristle occasionally when he looked down and saw it.
Gian worked from home most days, his phone his only life line to the outside world. He rarely checked emails, opting instead to use his computer solely for Photoshop purposes. His girlfriend, Justine, a 23-year-old (three years younger than him) he had met at a bar in the Mission, was always vexed by Gian's inability to communicate by any other means than an actual telephone call. Averse to texts or other forms of written contact, Gian was unreachable unless called. It was for this reason, perhaps, that it took him so long to be bothered by the crack, for he never really had to press his fingertips against it.
One day, Gian was working on Photoshopping a picture of Amy Winehouse into a picture with Marilyn Monroe for a freelance project he was working on that needed photos to accompany a "think piece" on tragic celebrities when his phone rang. At first, he couldn't find it right away. Growing more frantic to find it in case it was his boss of the moment needing him to prove that he hadn't been languishing all day, Gian unwittingly stumbled upon it by scratching his fingers against the crack, which had, by this time, pronged off into five or six other cracks. The pain of rubbing the sensitive pads of his fingertips on the crack was compounded by the fact that he missed the call.
When he tried to call back, there was no answer. Standing over the sink with his bloody fingertips placed unwaveringly beneath the hot running water, Gian considered the unavoidable fact that it might just be time to invest in a new screen, even though one of the few principles he ever stuck to was never giving the Apple corporation more money than it already had/was entitled to.
With the proper bandages now on his index and middle fingers, Gian dialed Justine's number and went about the undignified business of asking his younger girlfriend to borrow money before he got paid two weeks from now in order to remedy his communication situation. Justine was happy to oblige because she saw it as the first sign of Gian's as of yet unrevealed capability of being vulnerable. Plus, it was nice, for once, to be the one in control--the one with the upper hand.
Justine agreed to come over that night to lend him the $110 dollars (as quoted by an Apple store Genius Bar crew member) so that Gian could take it in the following day for immediate repair. The problem was, when Justine arrived, she had a strange air about her. It was something just bordering on haughtiness, but still subdued enough to not quite be deemed as such. Gian did not care for it.
As they sat down to the dinner Gian had prepared for her, arugula salad with pears and walnuts drizzled with a raspberry compote, he wondered if perhaps borrowing money was an imprudent idea. Was the crack(s) on his phone really so unbearable? This question was answered when he looked down at his war-torn hand as he picked up his fork to eat.
Still, Justine's attitude was extremely troublesome to his state of mind and, more importantly, his ego. To test the waters, he asked, "How's the salad?" Under ordinary circumstances, Justine might have gushed about how fantastic it was. Instead, she shrugged, "It's pretty good." It was then that Gian knew the tables had officially turned. He could not, with this knowledge, take her loan in good faith.
Before she left, Justine tried to casually remove the money from her purse to give to Gian as though it hadn't been at the forefront of her mind the entire evening. Gian, with just as much of an aloof demeanor, politely declined the funds, lying to her by saying he was getting paid for a freelance gig he forgot about tomorrow. Justine tried to do her best to act as though she wasn't completely flummoxed, but her expression and speechlessness gave her away.
After that, Gian distanced himself from Justine as much as possible, ceasing to call her and answering her texts infrequently until, finally, she gave up on trying to sustain the relationship. Gian felt faintly remorseful for occupying the cold shoulder technique, but he couldn't risk seeing her again with the same cracked phone. She would then always wonder why he hadn't accepted her money. And he couldn't just come right out and say it was his own masculine pride combined with the unalterable desire to be the dominant party in any relationship that prevented him from taking her up on her willing financial assistance.
About a year later, he would still think of Justine whenever he had to touch his phone screen. In this way, she managed to remain the sovereign over the ashes of their long-dead romance.
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